


Both Sides, Now

by tarlie



Series: Record Shop AU [3]
Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Brief references to certain members of the Resolution Foundation, Gordon Brown critiques the logical consistency of his own sex dreams, Gordon has strong opinions about FIFA, Ohhhhhhh Jeremy Corbyn, Peter Mandelson dresses as Morrissey and recounts most of The Unfinished Revolution, They never did fix that office door, Tony Blair is an ABBA fan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-23 20:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11409486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarlie/pseuds/tarlie
Summary: In November 1999, the BBC reported that Gordon Brown was considering a bid to leave the Government and become managing director of the International Monetary Fund.In October 2003, Tony Blair was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment for a longstanding heart condition.Obviously, neither of these things would ever realistically happen to a pair of twenty-somethings running a record shop in Islington.Obviously.





	1. Chapter 1

\- Before - 

 

He’s busy. He needs the sales figures for Neil before he gets back from Wales, and the windowless gloom of John’s little office means he has to focus his good eye on the papers, so Gordon doesn’t really register an intrusion until the boy is settling himself into the rickety little chair Gordon employs as his in-tray. Gordon blinks. The room refocuses, and his interloper’s face resolves itself in the gloom into an overlarge smile and very blue eyes. Then Gordon’s eyesight adjusts properly, and the details of his features– sharp eyebrows, and longish, artfully scruffy hair– come fully into focus. Gordon tries not to stare. He hates betraying the problem with his sight.

“Hey,” his intruder says cheerily, leaning forwards in the chair. He practically radiates unconcern; normally, that alone would make Gordon uncomfortable. “Peter told me to come and talk to you?” 

He manages to make it sound like a question. Gordon wonders how he’d managed to open the office door so quietly. People normally _knock_.

“Yes,” he says. Then he realises he’s still staring; he looks hastily back down at the ledger instead. “And you would be... Anthony Blair, right?”

“Tony,” Tony corrects him, still smiling. There’s a casual charm about him that Gordon immediately resolves not to give in to. “I sent my _résumé_ –” he pronounces it with an comically exaggerated French accent– “and Peter interviewed me, but he said you’d want to talk, too.”

“Your CV,” Gordon admits, “was pretty impressive.” He manages to keep it from sounding too complimentary, folding his arms over his chest. “So,” he asks, “why are you here?” 

That seems to disarm Tony slightly. His mouth opens and closes, but after a moment’s thought he smiles again. 

“Well, I was thinking about a job–”

Gordon waves a dismissive hand. 

“Why do you want to work here?” he interrupts, determined to forestall a brilliant, meaningless answer. “You have a Law degree. You went to _Oxford_. City law firms should be fighting with sticks to hire you. Why are you here?”

Tony smiles broader, eyes bright. He seems determined to win Gordon’s approval.

“Sodding Tories,” he quips, sounding far more cheerful – and far more expensively educated – than anyone Gordon’s ever heard the phrase from before. “City’s full of them. Can’t get a decent job without twelve unpaid internships and the right connections. Good thing Labour kicked them out.” He cocks his head. “Are you a Labour man, Gordon?”

He becomes slightly flushed when he’s excited, Gordon thinks.

“Yes,” he replies, sharply. “But not an idiot.”

A flicker of discomfort flashes over Tony’s face a moment before he smiles ingratiatingly and opens his mouth, clearly having found a suitably brilliant answer; Gordon frowns harder, anticipating a battle of wills. Tony is determined to win Gordon over. Gordon refuses to be won.

“Peter clearly thinks you should get the job,” Gordon muses, “since he sent you here armed with my political history.” Typical of Peter. “But it’s not his decision.”

Tony sighs. The huge smile has turned a little rueful.

“I am a Labour member, though,” he insists. “And I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m actually from Edinburgh?”

 _Not with that accent, no,_ Gordon considers saying.

“The door is just there, Mr. Blair,” he replies instead.

“Tony,” Tony replies, not moving. “Please call me Tony. The Holy Father himself would call me Tony. Everyone does.” 

“The door is still there.”

“Listen,” he says in a rush, “I’ll be honest. I don’t want to do law.” Gordon can tell he’s a little desperate, but he delivers it with impressive cool. “I was ok at it, but other people were better, and the hours are ridiculous, and it’s… dry.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he says, “if I’m ever tempted by a career in law.”

Tony keeps going.

“I want to go into music. I know everyone in their twenties in London wants to go into music, but so do I,” he continues with an irresistible determination. Almost irresistible. Or, at least, it’s an improvement on empty smiles and easy charm. “Red’s is as famous as cult music shops get,” Tony says, thoughtfully. “All that history, you know?”

Gordon does.

“I love that. I figure it’s the place to be, starting out. I won’t let it down.” 

Gordon is starting to suspect that Tony isn’t going to leave until he has the job. He’s almost as difficult to get rid of as Jez. Gordon hopes Tony isn’t planning to handcuff himself to the chair, too.

“I will be very good. I’m an excellent salesman, I’ll learn how to clean, I can make the tea.” His smile is friendly but insistent. Gordon thinks of Morrissey.

 

_The more you ignore me_

_The closer I get_

_You’re wasting your time_

 

“I need this job,” Tony says. “And Neil needs an employee. And,” he adds, “Peter clearly thinks I should have it.”

He’s clearly convinced this last point is the clinching argument; he holds Gordon’s gaze, waiting for him to give in. Gordon sighs. They do, after all, need a new employee.

“Part time,” he says slowly, voice gruff in an attempt to disguise the fact that he’s giving in. “Hard work. You’ll have to clean toilets, alphabetise records. And no getting out of duties by buttering Peter up.”

Tony shines, smile blinding, and Gordon looks away again. He really has become lonely in London, he thinks grimly, to be thinking of disregarding proper workplace ethics just because one of Peter’s protégés has nice eyes.

“Thank you,” Tony says, jumping to his feet and shaking Gordon’s hand with too much enthusiasm. “Thank you so much. You won't regret it, I –”

“Be here before seven on Monday,” Gordon replies shortly, pretending to be absorbed in his papers. “I’ll show you around before we open. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Tony vows. He watches Gordon’s felt-tip pen scratching down numbers for a moment before leaning over the desk. “I should probably tell you, though,” he adds, voice confessional, “now I’ve got the job – I’m actually a _massive_ Tory. Hate that phoney lightweight running Labour.”

Gordon’s head hurts suddenly; his jaw clenches with the effort of not shouting.

“I mean,” Tony continues, “Remember _'the hand of history upon our shoulders’_?” He laughs. “The guy makes himself sound like a moron. And he’s started losing hair, too.”

Gordon wonders how long he can retain control before punching the desk. It’s still got a hole in it from his last argument with John.

Then he notices the glint in Tony’s eyes.

“Stick to music, Anthony,” he mutters. “You make a terrible comedian.” 

He’s smiling despite himself.

“Tony,” the new employee replies automatically. Gordon wonders how long he’ll persist with that. “But yes, Captain,” Tony adds, winking. Gordon winces.

Out in the shop, Peter has put on _Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go_. Gordon rolls his eyes fondly– typical of Peter– and watches Tony snapping his fingers and humming it to himself as he leaves the office. He’s a little flat in places, compensating with energy. Unfortunately, though, Gordon has already decided he likes him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Later he asks Peter, very casually, if he’s told their new employee... anything. About them. The one time. 

Of course, Gordon has never managed to do anything very casually in his life, and it becomes painfully clear from Peter’s expression that he’s worried Gordon is expressing an interest in another attempt.

“No,” Gordon hastens to explain, “I’m not–” 

He can tell Peter believes him, because he immediately relaxes enough to start flirting.

“Oh darling, are you _sure_?”

“Yes. It’s just– Anthony turned up talking about the Labour party, and...”

“Nobody calls him ‘Anthony’, Gordon,” Peter teases. He looks fond, in the slightly patronising way that Peter sometimes does, leaning on his elbows over the counter and humming to the Pet Shop Boys.

 

_Every time I see you_

_No matter what we do_

_There's a strange reaction_

 

“But go on,” he prods.

“I only wanted to verify,” Gordon says, stonily, “whether you also saw fit to tell him about– about that.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. Just one. Just a fraction. Gordon glares at him.

“I didn’t, no,” Peter says, with a very faint smile, “because I am very private about my personal life, and because you are my _friend_ , Gordon, and also because I wasn’t seized with any sudden desire to be brutally murdered by an angry Scotsman.” 

Gordon laughs, a little reluctantly.

“Good,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m private about my personal life, too.”

“You are,” Peter agrees serenely, smiling slightly wider, and a little more knowingly.

“I just want some distance,” Gordon tells him, fidgeting uncomfortably with the hair behind his ear, “from Anthony.”

He can tell Peter doesn’t believe him.

 

 

\- After -

 

Tony is coming back from (here his voice would somehow become _extremely_ Catholic) Rome, so Gordon has left Harriet in charge of the shop in order to pick him up from the airport (Margaret and Robin are furious, but Gordon doesn’t care what Margaret thinks, and annoying Robin is the most fun Gordon can have outside a football stadium). He’d considered suggesting that Tony, a grown man, might be capable of hiring himself a taxi home; the voice in his head that _still_ sounds like Peter _bloody_ Mandelson had reminded him that this would be unlikely to be rapturously received. So Gordon has left Harriet in charge of the shop. 

Gordon arrives early, because he set off early, because he doesn’t want Leo to think he’s as chronically late for everything as he actually is. 

So, of course, the flight is delayed. Of course. 

Gordon admits to himself, grudgingly, that he can’t really blame Tony for the delayed flight. It still feels like something Tony would do, though, and do purely to annoy him, so he allows himself to feel cross with Tony anyway. Then he phones Harriet, asking about the sales, about the stock, about how they’ve been managing, and did they remember to check– 

“Sorry,” she interrupts loudly, “line’s dreadful this end.” 

“It’s fine here.”

“What? No, sorry,” she yells again. “Really can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

She hangs up. He tries unsuccessfully to call her a few more times before giving up, locating a Costa, and opening his laptop.

And then, after five cups of coffee he didn’t want in the first place and 200 pages of a book on the early New Orleans jazz scene he’s reading for the second time, the plane lands and Tony comes bounding through the Arrivals gate like a wanker, with a tan and a horrible new shirt, and a hairstyle that makes him look more of a moron than ever. Gordon grimaces, appalled. His head hurts. The caffeine, probably, and the stress, and perhaps just the sheer force of how much he’s missed Tony.

Tony is scanning Arrivals, eyes flicking from face to face; when he sees Gordon, his expression doesn’t change, but he drops his suitcase in the middle of the terminal in order to stride forward and take Gordon’s face in his hands. 

“Hey,” he says - almost absently, as though they’d seen each other only two minutes ago - before tucking a stray curl back behind Gordon’s ear and then kissing him far too enthusiastically for Gordon’s peace of mind. They’re in a public space. Tony’s dad is _right there_. It’s excruciating.

It’s a surprisingly welcome sort of excruciating, though. The two weeks were far too long. 

“Your stubble scratches,” Tony complains when he finally allows Gordon to escape him. “I hate it,” he adds tenderly, kissing Gordon’s cheek a few times for good measure. 

 _Two weeks was far too short_ , Gordon thinks, rubbing self-consciously at the slight five o’clock shadow along his jaw.

Tony’s dad is smiling a little when Gordon overcomes his embarrassment enough to exchange hellos; he hugs Tony goodbye, tells Gordon _take care of him_ \- Tony laughs- and heads off, still smiling.

Nice man. Well. Nice for a Tory.

“I’m exhausted,” Tony proclaims, chirpily. “Which way’s the car?” 

He spots the Costa before Gordon can answer, though, and practically skips off towards it, leaving Gordon to recover the abandoned suitcase and follow him through the terminal, frowning. Tony looks the opposite of exhausted. Gordon knows he’s good at hiding it, but there are usually traces, and all Tony seems is ridiculously happy. He’s positively radiating joy, seeming to infect everyone he interacts with; he makes the sleep-deprived kid behind the counter in Costa smile, pronouncing _espresso_ with a ridiculous faux-Italian accent, and rescues a French tourist they find wandering around lost in the car-park. Gordon had forgotten how good he is with people. It’s hard, watching him, not to feel a little jealous.

When they finally locate the car, Tony pulls him against it for another kiss, even deeper and slower than in Arrivals. Gordon gives in completely and almost at once, temporarily forgetting his annoyance over the delays and the luggage-carrying and making out in front of his dad in order to enjoy just having him there.

It’s been two weeks, after all.

“Hello, stranger,” Tony says, grinning. “Have you been good whilst I’ve been away?”

“I’m not the worst,” Gordon says, kissing him again, “of the two of us.” He tries to ignore the smugness with which Tony kisses back.

Tony’s face is red with stubble burn when he pulls away, and his new wanker’s hairstyle is falling over his eyes. Gordon feels a faint, familiar pride at how quickly he can erode Tony’s prized composure. And he looks better like this– slightly ridiculous, breathing hard and smiling with none of his usual nonchalance.

Gordon picks his suitcase up and throws it onto the back seat of the car before getting in. 

“I missed you,” Tony says, sliding into the passenger seat beside him and prising his hand from the gearstick to kiss his fingers. “I missed you so much.”

It’s patently true, which helps. Nothing is quite right about them, but he’s missed Tony – his salesmanship and his style, awful jokes, good sex and excellent coffee –  and Tony has missed him too, and the sun is shining on Tony’s face as Gordon turns onto the main road, and the whole ludicrous relationship seems a little less wrong.

 “Did you miss me?” Tony asks, taking his hand again after he changes gear. Gordon feels suddenly claustrophobic, like a weight on his chest, and he stares at the road, shaking off Tony’s hand to grip the wheel.

“Peter missed you,” he says distractedly. He focuses on the traffic, the lights, anything but the things he wants to say and can’t. “He’s invited us over tonight. For drinks.”

A flicker of concern passes over Tony’s face.

“Peter invited…?”

 “Peter invited _you_. Sue invited me.” He pauses. “She promises it’s not another reconciliation attempt.”

Tony sighs in obvious relief. Gordon knows he dislikes Sue. He knows it for a fact, because Tony has denied it stridently at least three times and now regularly insists he’s only wary of her friendship with Peter (it goes back to their days at Red’s with Neil, but, as Tony says, often seems founded in little more than expensive holidays and a shared hatred of the royal family). He’s fairly sure what makes Tony so uneasy about Sue is the fact that, long after Tony himself gave up, she has remained determined to make peace between Gordon and Peter.

He sometimes wonders if Tony is simply afraid that she’ll succeed. He knows Peter is. 

“Brilliant!” Tony says brightly, moving his hair out of his face. “We should go.”

“Weren’t you exhausted ten minutes ago?” Gordon asks.

Tony shrugs, smiling, and Gordon shakes his head with a frown. They lapse into silence, and Tony assumes his car-window look, fiddling thoughtfully with an ostentatiously large gold crucifix he’d been hiding under the collar of the vile new shirt.

Gordon battles claustrophobia and searches mutely for the right words. They escape him, again.

 

* * *

 

They get stuck in traffic on the motorway, and go straight to Sue’s. Peter is already there; watching him run to hug Tony, Gordon thinks anyone might’ve mistaken them for the separated lovers of the group. Sue raises an eyebrow at him and opportunistically downs the rest of Peter’s abandoned drink, stubbing her cigarette out in it. 

Tony asks Peter, with a smile, how Gordon’s management of the shop has been; Peter’s account is diplomatic, bordering on the generous, and nobody says the words ‘Patricia’ or ‘Geoff’. Then Tony asks after Philip.

“Stuck at work?” 

Peter sighs dramatically.

“As ever. You’d think he’d be content just to work miracles for you at Red’s, wouldn’t you?” he says.

 _Only if you knew absolutely nothing about Philip,_ Gordon thinks, tersely.

“Still,” Peter adds with a small smile, “it does bring in the money for fancy cocktails.” He picks up his glass, discovers it in use as Sue’s ashtray, and grins.

“How was Rome, dear?” he asks instead, and Gordon wonders whether he could just sneak off with Sue to the nearest pub. He probably could; Peter appears almost as absorbed by the sound of Tony’s voice as Tony is, and reacts in all the right places as Tony chatters about the _beauty_ and _rich history_ and _amazing vibe_ of Italy, and how glad he is to have gone before The Terrible Thing happens so that he could really _feel_ European (all four of them sigh at that– the words ‘London bubble’ come to mind, and Gordon grimaces). Peter, watching Sue tap ash into his martini glass, quickly decides they require more drinks and Tony follows him into the kitchen, still talking.

He looks at Sue. She’s been watching him for a while; he knows she’ll have noticed his irritation at the attention Tony is lavishing on Peter. He also knows she’ll also have inferred that Tony’s eagerness to talk probably stems from Gordon’s failure to ask Tony anything about the trip, and be short on sympathy. 

“So,” she says, taking a drag. “Is tonight hurricane weather?”

Gordon huffs. He hates that stupid nickname. Hurricane Tordon. Gorny. Whatever the fuck.

“We don’t fight that often,” he says slowly. It sounds wrong. They probably do.

“Yes, you do,” she says, which is a less abrasive verdict than it might be, given Sue’s standards. “I’m glad you managed the drive from Heathrow without murdering him, though.” She casts an appraising look over him, as though checking for any bloodstains, and makes a faint noise of surprise. “I love that shirt. I don’t even think I bought it for you. Peter?”

“Tony,” he replies, trying to fix the rumpled collar. He only makes it worse. “A birthday present, I think.”

“Ah,” she says. “So Charlie’s wrong. He _is_ good for something.” Gordon winces. To remember Charlie just now makes him feel a little out of joint. It conjures up the parts of his life that have to be abandoned before he can sit and drink with Sue and Tony and a man he still struggles to hate as much as he wants to.

She catches his expression. 

“Are you happy, Gordon?”

But Tony and Peter are emerging from the kitchen, still talking, and Gordon stares at the table rather than reply.

“Here we go,” Peter says with a flourish, setting the drinks down. “Three Cosmopolitans for three members of the cosmopolitan elite. And a whisky,” he adds with an impish grin, “for Gordon.”

He’s glad not to have to answer Sue. He’s not sure he’d have known how. He thinks he’s happy. He’s not sure happiness matters very much. He’s not even certain what it is. He tries to keep it all in balance: the shop, first and foremost, and Tony, and his own mind. People keep upsetting it, though; Tony and Peter most of all, usually before insisting that _he’s_ the one creating problems. 

“Thank you, Peter,” Sue says. Either she’s forgotten her question, or sensed danger and decided not to press it. “You’re getting better at making these,” she adds, after a sip. “This is surprisingly good.”

“Careful,” Peter warns her, laughing. “Remember last time.”

“I remember somebody doing some great choreography to Frankie’s _Relax_ ,” Sue replies, face impassive. 

Tony’s eyebrows fly up.

“No,” he pouts at Peter. “You told me that if I ever danced to that, you’d denounce me and all my works and then torch the shop for good measure.”

“I don’t remember,” Peter lies. He’s a better liar now than he used to be, but Gordon knows all his tells. “It was back in my beard days.” 

“Ah, yes, the beard days,” Sue laughs. “The days everybody assumed I was your beard.” 

Peter narrows his eyes theatrically. 

“Careful, Sue,” he says, voice silky and even. “Didn’t I help you getting rid of all those rumours about Anji?” 

Gordon very nearly smiles at the performance; it’s only a parody of how Peter really is when he’s vicious, of course, but a brilliant one. Peter, he reflects a little bitterly, has always been quite the actor.

“Wait,” Tony says, suddenly interested. “ _Anji_?”

Sue lights another cigarette.

“Peter,” Tony pleads, “you have to tell me about this.” 

Sue glares.

“No.”

“But Anji’s my fr–”

“No,” Peter agrees.

“But–”

“Tony,” Gordon says. 

Tony sighs.

“I still don’t know how you managed to persuade anyone you were dating a woman,” he says to Peter, as a concession of defeat. 

Peter shrugs.

“Well, if _you_ can convince them…”

Even Gordon laughs. Tony pretends to find it funny at first, but vanity intervenes, and they all amuse themselves listening to his defences of his own masculinity– _I think most people would say I’m a pretty straight sort of guy_ – as he sips Cosmopolitans and tries to cuddle his boyfriend. Gordon feels a little less trapped. He doesn’t have the right words yet. He’s not even sure he has the right feeling to put words to. Maybe it’s the presence of Peter, master of perfectly articulated hopeless situation; perhaps it’s Sue’s casual disregard for the feuds that still threaten to rip them all apart; maybe it’s even having Tony back and determinedly ignoring his attempts to establish a little space between them. Regardless, he feels somewhat surer in himself, in Tony, and in the future.

 

* * *

 

By the time they get back, Tony is a little worse for the cocktails, but he’s also Tony, and has been a fortnight without sex, so Gordon barely has time to close the door behind them before Tony pulls him close, attacking Gordon’s shirt buttons with more enthusiasm than skill. They both end up losing their balance; Gordon falls on the couch, and Tony promptly crawls into his lap for a kiss. Gordon pushes him away only a little less firmly than he had intended to.

“Bedroom, then,” Tony agrees, understanding at once. He practically manhandles Gordon from the living room, almost pushing him into his bedroom and onto the bed. 

“Come here,” he demands, pulling Gordon on top of him and kissing his face indiscriminately. “I missed you. So much. Even though,” he adds, “your stubble is really bothersome.”

“It would only take three minutes to shave,” Gordon offers. He knows Tony would rather run down Whitehall naked. Although Tony would probably quite enjoy that.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Tony tells him, pulling him closer again and kissing him slowly until Gordon becomes suddenly restless, biting Tony’s collarbones and listening with satisfaction to the moans he produces. Then Tony wriggles, moving to touch Gordon as well, and Gordon stops him, catching his wrists with one hand and holding them fast against the bed frame. They share a smile, and Gordon has to look away, moving his other hand over Tony’s chest slowly, remembering the feeling of his skin and of an understanding so complete that they almost seem constantly in wordless conversation.

It’s not as good as Tony’s coffee, he thinks, but it’s close.

“I won’t last long,” Tony warns him, breathing hard, and Gordon nods, kissing his jawline. He tugs once, sharply, at the huge crucifix around Tony’s neck, and Tony laughs as he bows his head to let Gordon take it off. Still, Gordon thinks, placing it on the bedside table, there are limits even to God’s forgiveness.

“I _knew_ you would do that,” Tony is crowing, delighted. “You’re so small-c conservative.” He laughs, then gasps when Gordon touches him, and then flushes, biting his lip. “Gordon. _Gordon._ Please.”

Tony is, for once, absolutely true to his word – he doesn’t last long at all, panting and moaning as he moves against Gordon’s palm, but he makes it up to Gordon soon afterwards, until they’re both contented and drowsy and vaguely smug at their own ability to please each other. Tony goes to shower and brush his teeth, and Gordon lies on the bed attempting to read a Bruce Springsteen biography by the bedside lamp before giving up and trying to find a decent position to sleep. 

Tony comes back into the bedroom, his hair still damp. He tastes of toothpaste when they kiss, Gordon half-asleep and Tony practically glowing in the lamplight.

“I missed you,” he says, still straddling Gordon's hips.

“It was only two weeks,” Gordon mumbles, instead of what he wants to say.

“Still,” Tony insists, kissing him again, and for one second Gordon thinks he’s going to have to remind Tony that he can’t go twice. Then Tony shifts back a little in his lap, wearing an odd expression that silences him. “I love you.”

There’s a pause.

It becomes very long.

And then the moment for a reply has passed, and it stretches out, far too quickly, into an unbearable silence, as Gordon starts to panic, searching frantically for the correct response to being pinned to the bed by your boyfriend and told that he loves you– maybe he can push Tony off and leave, go to Ed’s, or maybe he could pretend not to have heard properly, or–

“Goodnight, Gordon,” Tony says, ebullient as ever. 

He kisses Gordon’s forehead, turns off the lamp, and sprawls out on the bed beside him as usual, exactly as though nothing had changed.


	2. Chapter 2

\- Before -

 

He’s not been sleeping well lately, and crashes unconscious onto the sofa almost as soon as he gets in from work. When he wakes up, there are six voicemail messages on his phone. He checks the oldest one first. 

_Hey, Gordon! This is Tony. I know you showed me how to work the locks on the door, but I’m still having a bit of a problem with them. Can you call and explain it again? Thanks!_

On an instinct, he checks the most recent next.

_Hey, Gordon. It’s me. Tony. From the shop. Anthony, as you call me. Hey– I know it’s probably not the time, but– do you think you could ever call me Tony? Anyway. Good news and bad news, I’m afraid. I learned how to use the lock! So that’s solved. Bad news is that I was on the wrong side of the door when I learned how to lock it and now I’m locked in the shop. Peter told me you had the spare keys, and, er, obviously I don’t want Neil to know about this, so if you could help me out, I’d be really grateful. Thank you so much._

With some effort, Gordon unclenches his jaw and begins searching for his car keys.

 

* * *

 

He finds Tony lying on the shop floor, sweating, and for some reason, shirtless. He tries not to stare. 

“Oh, hey Gordon,” Tony says, getting up and smiling. That big smile again. “Sorry, it’s just- the aircon goes off at five, I was dying in here. Fucking global warming, right?”

“I guess,” Gordon mutters, inspecting the shop rather than look at Tony directly. It’s been done well. He doesn’t think anyone is this thorough about the clean-up except him. Not that he’s in the mood to be impressed, after being called to bail him out like this.

Next to him, Tony pulls his shirt back on. He’s still wearing the smile.

"I’m so sorry about this,” he says, sounding only faintly sheepish. “Won't happen again.”

“It had better not,” Gordon warns him, rather too bluntly. Tony seems to deflate, and Gordon tries not to feel sorry for him. Tony is appallingly puppy-like, sometimes. Small wonder Peter has such a soft spot for him.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“Yeah,” Tony assures him, patting his pockets. He touches Gordon’s arm suddenly. “I feel terrible about this. You were probably with a girl- I didn’t mean to ruin- I’m so sorry for interrupting your evening.”

(It will be years before he realises that this was a trap. There will be a Tory majority in the House of Commons before he understands that he fell straight into it.)

“I was asleep,” Gordon tells him, too fast.  

“Well,” Tony says, blue eyes bright again- Gordon has never met anyone quite so sparkly-eyed- “let me make it worth waking up for, then.”

 

* * *

 

They’ve each had six shots of some obnoxious hipsterish gin Tony loves, and Gordon can’t help but smile at Tony a little. The guy’s in much worse shape than Gordon himself is, tolerance hardened by years of keeping up with John on work nights out. Tony’s inebriation isn’t obvious, but his mannerisms have become looser and his smile, if possible, wider than ever. 

And there’s the singing, of course.

The bar is playing _What Became of the Likely Lads_ , and he’s singing along as he waits to be served, much too loudly and slightly off-key. His hair is falling in his eyes. He looks… well, it doesn’t matter how he looks. It’d be a bad idea anyway. Boys in jeans that tight always are, even when they aren’t his colleagues.

“Enjoying yourself?” Gordon asks dryly, when Tony returns with their drinks. Tony beams.

“Well, yes. I’m a little drunk,” he admits, taking a sip of whatever garish cocktail he’s ordered and folding his limbs into the chair across from Gordon. He leans in close. Intrusively close. Charmingly close. Sensibly close, given that someone’s just turned the music up, probably at Tony’s request. “How are you not a little drunk, Gordon?”

“Scottish,” Gordon says, drinking a little.

“I’m Scottish!” Tony protests. Gordon shakes his head, still smiling.

“I was born in Scotland!” Tony insists, voice impossibly posh and irrefutably English. “I went to school in Edinburgh. I support Scotland in the World Cup.”

“Being born in a stable…” Gordon teases. Tony rolls his eyes, and Gordon suddenly muses that there’s a certain rhythm to this, almost melodic, not unlike learning a new song; both of them far too pleased by the sound of their own voices. “And,” Gordon adds, “you went to school at _Fettes_.”

“Oh, who died and made you Alex Salmond?” Tony’s grin is blinding.

“Don’t even mention that pathetic rabble of-”

“Yes, yes, alright,” Tony concedes, chuckling, and Christ alive, he’s pretty. He’s got the prettiest eyes. There’s something mesmerising about him. Gordon looks away. “I didn’t mean to insult Scotland,” Tony continues, mock-piously, “and I apologise to the Clyde, the ghost of Donald Dewar, and you.”

Gordon is momentarily distracted by the thought of an immortal, translucent Donald Dewar as Tony shuffles a cigarette from his jacket. He brings it almost to his lips before remembering.

“Fuck,” he complains quietly to himself. “You can’t smoke anywhere any more, can you? Fucking whatshisface with the teeth and the sin taxes and the... laws.”

He really is quite drunk, Gordon thinks.

“He was right, actually,” he says anyway, from an ancient instinct to defend Labour, or because it’s true, or perhaps just to see Tony’s reaction. “The burden on the NHS-”

Tony grins.

“Ah, but if that’s true how come I’m still handsome and youthful and our has-been of a PM looks like Skeletor, hm?” 

“He looks good for his age,” Gordon snaps, too defensively. He can feel his ears turning warm, and for the first time in the evening is grateful for Peter’s absence. He’d probably leap at the opportunity to revive his old routine about _Gordon’s little crush_. He can still hear it in his head. Peter’s smile. _I always tell him it’ll be his downfall_. “Or,” he adds, shifting in his seat, “so I’ve heard, anyway.”

Tony shrugs. 

“Not my type.” 

He touches Gordon’s hand.

“Can we go outside? I need a fag.” Gordon nods. Tony leads him out onto the terrace, not relinquishing his hand. He’s drunk, Gordon reminds himself. He probably needs the support to stop himself swaying.

He watches Tony light up and take a drag; the cigarette is menthol-flavoured, somehow exactly as ridiculously wankerish as he’d have expected Tony to be. The shots have clearly done their work, though, because Gordon finds it more endearing than enervating. He doesn’t even mind Tony’s refusal to drop his hand as they talk; it’s good and comfortable and easy, like they’ve been doing this for a lifetime, like they know each other perfectly, talking about everything that matters. They talk about music, and then Gordon talks about poetry, then they're back at music again, then politics, and religion. They talk until the stub of Tony’s fourth cigarette burns his finger and he drops it with a yelp, trying to scrub away the black mark on his skin. Gordon watches him silently, worried. 

“It’s ok,” Tony assures him, and tries to take Gordon’s hand again. Gordon hesitates.

“Be more careful, Anthony,” he tells him, gently.

“It’s Tony,” he says, and it sounds like a request. His voice was made for that pleading pitch.

There’s a pause.

Gordon thinks for a moment that Tony might lean in, and realises suddenly his heart is racing. Whatever Tony does now, Gordon thinks, he’ll let him. He has made himself completely, idiotically vulnerable to whatever strange magnetic power it is Tony has over people.

Tony seems closer now. Gordon can hear his breathing. 

 _This is wrong_ , he thinks, suddenly. _You haven’t fully considered this. He works with you. You’re misreading the signs. You’re projecting. He’s probably sleeping with Peter. You don’t really know him. He’s not interested. He’s straight.  He’s using you. It’s a joke. You’ll be outed. You’re already a crushing disappointment to your par-_

Tony pulls away, suddenly, and Gordon comes to himself; Tony’s phone, he realises, is vibrating. It’s probably been vibrating for a while.

“Hey babe!” Tony says, phone to his ear. He sounds his usual cheerful self, only drunker. “Oh-” 

He grimaces suddenly.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry! I totally forgot. I’m on my way back now, I’ll pick something up on the way, promise.”

Gordon feels numb and stupid. Tony has a girlfriend. Of course he has a girlfriend. He was- he’s lonely. He should get a girlfriend himself. It might stop him indulging in inappropriate thoughts about his colleagues. He’d probably never have slept with Peter if he’d had a girlfriend.

Next to him, Tony is still talking.

“No, just with some mates. Yeah, from the shop! No, Peter’s not here, but I’ll tell him you send your best tomorrow. I really am sorry. Ok. Love you.”

He hangs up with an apologetic smile for Gordon. Gordon wonders what he’s apologising for. 

“That was Cherie,” he explains, “my girlfriend. I promised her I’d cook, she’s got a huge case on and she’s working late, so-”

Gordon isn’t sure what to say. He stares down at his hands instead. 

“I should go,” Tony says, after a pause. “Goodnight, Gordon.”

Gordon nods. 

“It’s late,” he agrees, although it isn’t, really. He doesn’t offer to drive Tony back home. It’s stupid, he tells himself, to feel like he’s been caught in some transgression. “Goodnight, Anthony.”

“It’s Tony!” Tony calls back over his shoulder from the other end of the terrace.

Gordon tells himself this won't happen again.

 

\- After -

 

He leaves early, whilst Tony is still sleeping. 

Normally, he’d wake Tony and drive them both to work, but he’s not sure he wants to. He pens a near-illegible note about jet lag and sleep cycles and ends up needing a second sheet of paper to explain to Tony that he should just learn to go to bed earlier and that Gordon is not his minder. It ends up looking horribly guilt-ridden, though, so he throws it in the bin and just leaves a post-it with _went to work, we’re out of coffee_ next to the kettle. 

He hadn’t expected anyone to be there this early, but he’s wrong; Harriet is leaning against the bricks, smoking a cigarette, oversized headphones blasting Patti Smith so loudly that Gordon can hear them half a street away. He winces. 

“You’ll burst your eardrums like that,” he tells her, by way of greeting.

“Gordon!” she says cheerily, pushing the headphones down around her neck and turning the volume up still further. “Rot in hell.”

Their professional relationship is based on a deep well of mutual trust and understanding, and almost no respect at all.

“What you doing here?” Gordon demands, busying himself with the ancient, arcane system of locks, latches and codes that secure the shopfront. Tony took an age to learn them all, he recalls fondly, then tries not to think of Tony. 

“Me and Margaret-”

“Margaret and I,” he corrects her.

“Me and Margaret are gonna go check on this collector’s son who’s doing away with his dad’s collection.” She crushes the cigarette daintily under her boot. “You know how these things go. We can never afford the really good stuff, but there’s always a hidden gem or two.” 

Gordon frowns as he enters the shop and flicks on the lights on. Harriet follows him inside.

“That was today?” he asks, distractedly. He’d managed to forget, somehow. Tony must have arranged it before haring off to Rome; Gordon would have told him it was a bad idea, for exactly the reasons Harriet has listed, and also because he wishes he’d heard about the sale first.

“Yeah, has to be today. He’s leaving on Friday.” She watches Gordon spooning coffee into the pot. “Make it for two, ok?”

“I know,” he says, but adds more coffee.

She grins and makes herself comfortable in a nearby chair.  

“How come Tony’s not with you?” she asks, expression innocent, and he knows she’s onto him. 

“Tired,” he mutters. “From the flight.” It’s not a lie. Tony probably is tired from the flight. There is no reason why this should feel like a lie, because it’s not. He’s definitely not lying. 

She scoffs, taking the I LOVE MY BOSS mug Gordon proffers and sipping tentatively at the boiling coffee.

“Not as good as Tony’s,” she tells him.

“Thanks.”

“So you managed to fight on his first day back?” she asks. “How long after the plane hit the tarmac, exactly?”

Gordon hesitates.

“Oh my God, it wasn’t _before_ , was it?”

“We haven’t fought,” Gordon snaps. It’s true. They haven’t. When they fight, Gordon feels righteous and wronged. Now he just feels... strange. Out of place. Like the slightly displaced, uprooted feeling of trying to join a conversation on a subject he doesn’t understand.

Harriet shrugs, still looking amused. 

“Margaret should be here soon,” she reassures him, “so you won’t be stuck with me for long.”

Gordon doesn’t reply, distracted by the pinging of his phone. A message. From Tony.

_Hey babe! Missed you this morning but I’ll see you at Red’s._

Tony is coming. Tony is coming to the shop- his shop- their shop. Tony will come into his office and force him to say it, or cry about how he won’t say it, or to use the fact that he can't say it as leverage, or perhaps enlist Peter to conduct an inquisition into why, exactly, Gordon can’t say it. Tony is above none of this. 

“Harriet,” he says sharply, setting his coffee down with a crash. “Let me take you to the sale.”

She blinks, a little confused.

“What about Margaret?”

“She’s late,” Gordon barks. It’s no time for sympathy.

“It’s a two-hour drive,” she warns him.

“Good,” he says grimly. Four hours before Tony can reach him. If they take long enough at the sale, he might be able to go straight home. An entire day before-

He catches Harriet’s look of alarm. 

“Good for you,” he clarifies, unconvincingly. “I have my car here.”

“Sure,” she says, voice dripping suspicion.

They finish their coffees in silence.

“Men,” says Harriet, thoughtfully. “You’re all very strange, you know.” 

 

* * *

 

Harriet happily ignores Gordon’s instruction to just read out the directions from Google Maps, choosing instead to give incredibly vague instructions long after they might be of any use. They get lost three times in this way- she insists she’s being perfectly clear and that the fault is his driving and lamentable lack of direction- before he finally decides to use the satnav instead.

When they finally arrive, some three hours later, the collector’s son offers an apologetic smile and explains that most of the good stuff has already gone to collectors who’d shown up earlier; still, he says, they’re free to look around for anything they fancy. 

“Sorry,” Harriet says, apparently unperturbed by their bad luck. “This one got lost and wouldn’t ask for directions, because he’s a _man_.”

Gordon bites his tongue rather than reply, and wanders into the living room to begin looking through the material. Despite their lateness, there are still hundreds of records laid out over the dinner table, the dresser, every available surface. The walls are hung with photographs of a man he presumes must’ve been the collector, posing with a pantheon of musical gods; Jagger, Bowie, Lou Reed, but also Madonna and Bjork. It’s a comfortable house, a comfortable life. It reminds him of John’s. 

There’s nothing impressive left; the usual suspects, but he does spot a couple he wants, obscure bands that might go for quite a bit to the more anoraky types that frequent the shop. He knows they might, because he’s half-tempted to keep a few of them for himself. He doesn’t have the money, though, and Red’s needs them more. 

His phone goes off again. 

_Where are you?_

It’s Peter, but Peter would only send him this at Tony’s request, of course, so Tony has told Peter about last night, and this is Tony’s attempt to manipulate him into feeling bad without looking manipulative enough that he doesn’t. Which means he can’t reply to it. Though not replying will only confirm whatever Tony’s told Peter. Maybe it’s wiser to reply.  He bites at the inside of his cheek as he types and deletes and retypes, trying to keep it all in his head and not concede anything. This would be easier if it were simply a fight, simply between him and Tony a clear fight, or if he even knew what they were fighting about.

He’s just deleted his third attempt when a new message arrives.

_Never mind. Harriet told me._

He looks over at Harriet, frowning, but she’s in a good mood, arms full of records, and she smiles as she walks over.

“My loot,” she says, with a touch of pride. “Though,” she adds, pulling a remarkably old record of _Red Castle_ , “I’m taking this one myself.”

“£50?” Gordon asks, parsing through the rest of the stuff. 

“Well, I have it.”

“It doesn’t look in great condition,” he warns her, then caves.“Why did you tell Peter where I was?”

“It’s not a secret,” she replies with a shrug, “is it?”

He’s discomforted by the sharpness of her gaze. She looks at him sometimes like she knows him very well. It’s annoying. He hates being reminded of how easy he is to read. 

“No,” he lies, shuffling through the records one last time. She smiles.

“Sure. I’m going to go buy this.”

Gordon sighs and checks the time on his phone. A new message.

_Sweetheart, are you avoiding me?_

Tony, of course. Peter and Tony are never more than five seconds apart, not that he’s jealous, not that he knows who he would be jealous of, if he were, which he isn’t.

Tony’s writing something. Gordon’s heart hammers. He might say it again. If he does, it’ll become obvious that Gordon can’t say it back, and then Tony will tell him that it’s not really working, and then they’ll break up and Tony will find it awkward to have Gordon in the shop, and fire him.

 _Busy, have to go,_ Gordon types, fast as he can, then turns his phone off. 

He tries to fix his hair and look relatively unruffled, grabbing the records he judges worth the money and goes find the collector’s son. 

“Oh, these are good,” he says, a little nostalgic. “Dad loved these.”

“He seems like a smart man,” Gordon mumbles. He bites his tongue when he realises the faulty tense.

“He was, yeah,” the son says. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Gordon’s mistake; he looks lost in thought. “I think this stuff kept him from feeling lonely later in life, really. He was a very… he wasn’t a people person.” He grins. A happy memory. “You know the type. Brusque.” Then he blinks, embarrassment suffusing his face. “Sorry, I just… it’s recent. I think it comes to-”

“One hundred and fifty two,” Gordon finishes for him. He doesn’t bother to negotiate. He recognises the man’s tone- they all sound a little like that, even now, talking about John. He wishes John was still here. Things might be easier, perhaps even with Red’s; for all their fights, John liked him better than Tony, could have been persuaded to leave it to him, could have realised he deserved it more. 

The collector’s son takes the money with a small smile, grateful for Gordon’s determination to ignore his fit of sentimentality. Gordon offers an awkward _thank-you_ and leaves as quickly as he can; Harriet is waiting for him by the car, reading Guardian articles on her phone, and watches him load the records into the car without offering to help.

“Did you get any of the stuff I recommended?” she asks, when he’s done.

“The New Order one,” he tells her, getting into the car. She manages to put her seatbelt whilst frowning at her phone.

“Little Duncan’s asking me about the new Springsteen biography, is it good?”

Gordon tries in vain to remember who Duncan is.

“Friend of Torsten’s,” Harriet explains, to his mystification. “Torsten is a friend of Ed’s,” she adds.

“B?”

“M.”

Oh, of course. The kid who wrote the viral article on how he used to be a fascist toddler or something, and now came to blow all his pocket money on records wearing one of Harriet’s WOMEN OF THE WORLD, UNITE! buttons on his oversized coat. The webs and networks of friendship around Red’s is strangely vast - everyone who’s ever worked there, plus their friends, and their friends’ friends, and their grandchildren, all seem to retain a sentimental attachment to the shop.

“It’s ok. Why is he asking you?”

She shrugs, amused. 

“No idea. Can you believe there are kids out there who think _we_ are adults?”

“I am an adult,” Gordon mutters, uncomfortably. She scoffs.

“So why am I getting messages from Peter demanding that you turn your phone on?”

Gordon elects not to answer; he tries to focus on the road, and Harriet doesn’t push him further into talking, but the silence grows, giving him space to think about Tony, and the look on Tony’s face as he’d said it, and the sincerity with which he’d said it, and the things he himself had wanted to say earlier, on the way from the airport, and - 

Harriet suddenly grabs the wheel, and the car swerves violently to the right. Behind them, a middle-aged man in an Audi honks and passes them by, looking irritable.

“Christ,” Harriet mutters, sounding a little shaken. “You’re worse at this than I remembered.”

He flicks the indicator and pulls over.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. He is. He feels slightly confused.

“Yeah, it’s ok,” she says, calming down. “Don’t do it again though, it was fucking scary.” 

They stare at each other a moment, and he thinks about the words before he says them. He trusts Harriet, mostly. He even likes her, sometimes. Crucially, right now, she isn’t Charlie, isn’t Peter, has no interest at all in Gordon’s relationship with Tony beyond wishing they’d stop fighting all the time. He thinks she could help.

“Harriet.” 

His voice is much tenser than he means it to be.

“Yes?”

“Do you think Tony loves me?”

She blinks, confused. He’s about to backtrack when understanding lights up her face.

“Of course he bloody loves you, Gordon,” she tells him, laughing. “Do you think he'd put up with any of the rest of the shop throwing tantrums like yours?”

“I do _not_ -” 

“Whatever,” she interrupts, dismissively. “Oh my God. Are you gonna tell him you love him? Gordon, he’ll be unbearable. For _weeks_. You could’ve had the decency to tell him before he left, spared us all the conspicuous rubbing of bruises.” She warms to her theme, mimicking Tony’s voice. “ _Gosh, sorry Harriet, I’m just so sore_ -” 

Gordon scowls.

“No.” 

“Oh?” she says, taken aback. “So why-?” 

Gordon doesn’t reply straight away, hoping she’ll get bored and leave him be again. She waits him out.

“He said it,” Gordon confesses. She purses her lips in concentration.

“And you?”

“I -” 

He finds himself unsure of how to finish the sentence. He feels uncomfortable at the judgment in her face. “He put me on the spot!” he protests. "I didn't know that he-"

“Oh my _God_.” 

She makes a faint noise of horror, then suddenly snorts in amusement. “Oh Christ, that’s so rough for him, but still...” 

“What?” Gordon asks, not seeing anything very funny about it.

“Well, you know, it’s a quite the image, our resident charmer- him and his big Bambi eyes- not getting what he wants for the first time in his life. _God._ ” She shakes her head, giggling to herself.

Gordon doesn’t see what’s so funny. Thinking of Tony, and Tony’s eyes as he’d said _goodnight, Gordon,_ is only making his head hurt. He turns away from her gaze.

“Well, thank-you for your help, Harriet,” he says stiffly. He goes to start the car, but she puts a hand on his shoulder, and he turns back to look at her.

She’s watching him with the kind of indulgent warmth she normally spares for stories about her women’s group.

“Gordon,” she says, with the patronising fondness of an older relative, “you make these things so _difficult_.” Harriet is younger than him, he thinks with faint resentment. She’s probably dated less men, too, given how long she seems to have been with Jack. “He said it,” she adds, “because he loves you. He really does. Which is a good thing. I mean, yes, Tony’s way of loving is probably strange and self-centred and possibly slightly narcissistic, and-” 

“Alright,” he interrupts her. He _is_ dating Tony. He doesn’t let anyone but the kids talk to him about Tony like that. 

She grins. She’s more prone to mischief than most people realise, he thinks. 

“I mean this is a good thing, ok? He's not tricking you. And you’ll tell him too, when you know it.” 

“How will I know it?” Gordon asks. It sounds childish, which irritates him, but there’s no way around the question. It’s not that he’s never told girlfriends he loves them. He has, often in perfect sincerity. Never to a man, though. Even if he had, he wishes he didn’t have to say it to a man like Tony.

She shrugs.

“You’ll know,” she says, reassuringly. To his relief, she takes her hand from his shoulder. “Now, please keep your eye on the road. I refuse to die before I get to dismantle the patriarchy.” 

“Right,” he mutters, sheepishly. She ruffles his hair, which he doesn’t appreciate. Then he remembers the other thing he’d wanted to ask her. “There’s something else.”

“Yeah? 

He clears his throat.

“Do you think you could tell Tony I’m not going back to the store today? I need to listen to these and get them catalogued, and-”

“Absolutely no way,” she says, firmly. He sighs.

“Oh, worth a try,” he mutters to himself, and she laughs again.

He starts the car again and drives, badly, to her crazy haphazard instructions, as they both sing to Aimee Mann at the top of their voices. Harriet sings a little flat, but it’s fun, sincerely fun, and he reflects that he probably loves her, in a strange way. 

 

* * *

 

There are three messages on his phone when he checks it after dropping Harriet off.

He tells himself it was completely reasonable to come straight home; he needs to listen to the new acquisitions, price and catalogue them, and he’ll get a better idea of the sound quality in the peace of his flat than in the middle of the shop with customers buzzing around. It sounds unpersuasive even to him, though, so he simply sinks onto his narrow couch and tries to gather courage to talk to Tony, conspicuously offline, or to Peter, likewise absent. They’re probably talking, probably about what an appalling boyfriend he is, probably kissing for comfort, probably- 

He grits his teeth and attempts to fend off the jealous thoughts. This happens every time he fights with Tony, but this isn’t a fight, not a normal one, and it’s ridiculous to treat it like one.  

The first message is, of course, Mandelson himself. Wanker.

_Hello, Gordon._

He sounds tired, and the ever-present note of flippancy is there, but he’s speaking in his most professional voice. Gordon wonders if he’s pretending and failing to be impartial, or is just annoyed at being unable to get hold of him. _I know you’re- hm- busy, avoiding Tony, but just to let you know that I gave some nice people your number. Don’t worry. Business related._ There’s a pause, and then a deep sigh. _Also, you should know your boyfriend has decided not to give me any details, even though I do nothing but try to support his ridiculous relationship, and-_

Gordon hangs up. He’s uncomfortable at the thought of Peter giving his number out. It’s Peter, though; the man, to his credit, has a long history of getting it right with these things, so he decides on balance he’s angrier at the meddling with his love life. 

The second message is Tony’s. 

_Hey, Gordon._

It’s too much. His voice is too cheerful. He can’t do this; he takes the phone from his ear, about to hang up.

 _Don’t hang up_ , Tony tells him. Gordon stares down at the phone a moment, annoyed by how well Tony knows him. He doesn’t hang up, though; when Tony starts speaking again, he puts the phone back to his ear. _Gordon,_ Tony says, voice gentle, _I know you’re worrying about last night, because of the thing. You know the thing. I don’t think I need to say it._  He pauses a moment, before deciding to say it anyway. _My love for you._ Gordon winces. _My deep sexual and emotional passion for you. My intense affection of a mature and amorous nature. For you. Anyway, I know it’s been scaring you, but listen, it’s- it’s not a big deal. I mean, it is a big deal. I love you. Quite a lot._ He sounds tender but not hurt, and if it’s an act it’s a fine one. _I’m not upset that you didn't say anything. It’s not a big deal for me. You need time to think. So think away. I love you._

The message ends. Gordon stares at his phone, appalled. It’s a peace offer, of course, but insufferable. Tony is insufferable. He wants to make peace anyway. He can’t. He needs time to think. 

He hates how well Tony knows him. 

The third message is an unknown number. 

 _Hello, Mr. Brown. We’re from the record label IMF._  

Gordon tries to remember what IMF stands for. He’s pretty sure the ‘M’ is for ‘Music’, but like NME, he’s never quite sure.

 _A Mr. Peter Mandelson gave us this number and suggested you may be interested in a job offer._ The voice is pleasant and feminine. Gordon remembers the label quite well- big in France, for some reason- and they’ve done work for a friend of his in New York. He wonders what they want with him. _Do call back at your own convenience. Thank you very much._

 


	3. Chapter 3

\- Before -

 

It’s his birthday. That’s fine; he’s never liked his birthday much anyway. This has proved a particularly dull one, though, with Peter stuck at home with a sore throat and swollen eyes- a reaction to some bad milk, apparently- and nobody else even aware of the fact, except Philip, who slips him a poorly-wrapped first edition of _T-Rex_ during his lunch break and looks startled to be pulled into a hug (Gordon has wanted it on vinyl forever). He’s fine. He wants to go home, drink a little, listen to whatever playlist @campbellclaret has up this week. It’s often pretty decent. 

It’s Margaret who foils this excellent plan, quite inadvertently; they’re on close, almost done cleaning, when she walks in, looking… different. He doesn’t normally notice this sort of thing, but he’s not _completely_ blind. 

“You’ve been growing your hair out,” he says in dumb surprise.

“For a couple of months now,” she agrees, touching the little mop of hair in faint dissatisfaction. “I’ve been taking administration classes. Bit awkward being the only bald head in the room.”

 “I see,” Gordon says, unable to disguise his approval. She’s smart. It’s good to see her make something of herself. “And Benn? And his lot? They didn’t... object?”

She scrunches up her face.

“Haven’t talked to them in ages,” she says, disdain colouring her voice. “I was a moron to ever hang around with them, really.” She looks around the shop, impatient. “Is Neil here? I wanted to ask him-" 

“In Wales,” Gordon tells her, returning to his cleaning. "Again."

“John?” she tries, without much hope.

“Still only comes in on Thursdays.”

Her shoulders slump. Gordon feels a twinge of sympathy. Margaret’s ok. 

“You should come back on Thursday, if you can,” he tells her. “I think John misses you.”

“If I can,” she agrees, shrugging. “Hey- happy birthday, though.”

“Thanks.” He attempts a smile.

“What’s this?” 

Tony has materialised suddenly from the gloom at the back of the shop- he really must have learned that from Peter, there’s nobody else who can do that- and he looks alarmingly gleeful for a boy who’s spent twenty minutes cleaning the customer toilets.

Tony moves further forward, positively _electric_ with joy. He leans on the counter Gordon is attempting to clean. 

“Gordon?” he asks, utterly delighted. “Is it your birthday?”

“Oh Gordon, sorry,” Margaret says, grimacing. “I know you don’t like a fuss. I didn’t realise he didn’t-”

“‘S ok,” Gordon mutters, trying to avoid Tony’s gaze. “You can’t really hide anything from this one.”

Margaret raises an eyebrow.

“You’re Anthony, right?” she asks him. “The new one Peter hired?” She sticks out a hand. “I’m Margaret. Used to work here back when it was Mike’s.” 

“Just Tony,” he assures her, shaking her hand, “and with luck I’ll convince Gordon of that some day.” He smiles. “I remember- I heard good things about you from Peter.” 

She laughs at that.

“Peter?” She asks, eyebrows raised. “ _Peter_ had a good word for someone other than Gordon?”

Tony shrugs, still with the charm on full blast, though his smile has faltered slightly. Gordon decides to keep polishing the counter.

“I took it all to be good, anyway.”

“Generous of you.”

“That’s me,” he says lightly, and they both laugh. Gordon wonders whether Margaret likes him. If she doesn’t, she’s willing to pretend to. Maybe she’s learning diplomacy at last. 

Tony turns back to Gordon, eyes still bright. “So, Gordon. It’s your birthday, and you didn’t throw us a party. I’m offended. I’m sure Margaret is too.”

“Deeply,” Margaret says, grinning like a shark.

“Don’t,” Gordon warns her, but he’s smiling too, and too soft. “This one is like a dog with a bone-”

“Oh, so that’s why Peter hired him-”

“- if you give him an inch he’ll take a mile.”

“You are being _extremely_ rude about me in front of Margaret, on whom I am trying to make a good impression, but I will forgive you, because it’s your birthday.”

“Generous of you,” Gordon says. His tone is dry, but he knows his expression has betrayed him.

“And,” Tony adds, taking Gordon’s arm, “because you are coming back to mine for birthday drinks with me at home.” Gordon notices Margaret’s bemused expression, and suddenly remembers he doesn’t usually like to be touched. “Are you coming along, Margaret?”  Tony asks with a smile. “I’m sure-”

“Sorry,” she says, smiling a little oddly. “I have a thing tonight- women’s group, I promised Harriet I’d see her there-”

“Harriet?” Tony asks, a little curious. The boy has a knack for chatter, Gordon thinks, even if it’s just the fear of being left out.

Margaret waves it away.

“Just the girl who runs it.” She nods at them, a little uncertainly. “Have a nice time though, Gordon.”

“I’ll look after him,” Tony assures her. 

“I’m sure you will,” she tells him with a grin.

Gordon had a distinct impression there is a joke, and an unpleasant feeling that it’s at his expense. He sighs as Margaret leaves.

“Anthony, there’s absolutely no chance of me going back to your place for birthday drinks.”

 

* * *

 

He ends up going back to Tony’s place for birthday drinks. Gordon isn’t quite sure how Tony manages it, only that he had said no, and no, and no again, and then they’d gone back to Tony’s apartment- his girlfriend’s apartment, technically. She’s in Liverpool at the moment, Tony tells him, but she’d just love Gordon, apparently. Gordon doesn’t believe it for a moment. He’s not even sure Tony does. He’s more worried about the pattern beginning to emerge, though, in which Tony asks and asks until Gordon is doing things he would usually say no to. 

So here they are, drinking Tony’s girlfriend’s beer on Tony’s couch with their knees touching. Gordon doesn’t care that their knees are touching. He’s not even thinking about it. He spends days, whole weeks, not thinking of Tony at all, or only a little, or the normal amount. Admittedly, he thinks a lot about not thinking about Tony, but it’s hardly the same thing. 

And even if he did like Tony- even if he liked him a lot- it still doesn’t mean much that their knees are touching. Tony flirts with everyone. As the sole survivor of a nuclear fallout, Tony would be flirting with the cockroaches. It means exactly nothing that he flirts with Gordon. Tony loves his girlfriend and definitely loves the fact that she earns enough to keep them both comfortable even in London. So this is just a friendship. Just a very strange friendship that leaves him with a vague and uncomfortable yearning. That’s fine. He deals well with yearning. He thinks he does, anyway.

“- and that,” Tony concludes, practically out of breath, “is why ABBA is a frankly incredible band, contrary to what the snobs will tell you.” 

“A good argument,” Gordon admits. Tony beams triumphantly. “The only problem is that it’s completely and utterly wrong,” he adds, and laughs at Tony’s pout. He’s actually laughing. On his birthday. A few drinks and their knees touching and he unravels completely like this for Tony. A strange, scary thought.

“ _Knowing Me, Knowing You_ is one of the most beautiful songs ever.”

“Embarrassing,” Gordon replies, shaking his head. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Ok,” he says, springing to his feet. “Let me prove you wrong.”

He fiddles with the speaker and his phone and then, sure enough:

 

 

_No more carefree laughter_

_Silence ever after_

 

Tony’s smile is huge. 

“Come on, then,” he says. “If you can resist dancing to this I’ll take it all back.” His eyes are bright with the challenge.

“I don’t dance, Anthony,” he tells him. He feels suddenly awkward- more awkward than usual- in his own body.

“That’s because you hate ABBA, and therefore fun,” Tony explains, pulling him to his feet. “Ok. Now just enjoy it, ok? Stop being such a musical bigot.”

“It’s called taste,” Gordon grumbles. His legs don’t move; they feel oddly heavy as he watches Tony spin and do something complicated with his feet. “You’re better at this than I had expected.”

“I could give you lessons,” Tony offers, smiling and moving a little closer. Gordon knows where this ends.

 

_Breaking up is never easy, I know, but I have to go_

 

Gordon backs away, shaking his head, and Tony looks disappointed. He’s competitive, Gordon thinks. He doesn’t like losing.

 

_Knowing me, knowing you_

_It's the best I can do_

 

Gordon sits down again.

“Proven wrong,” he says shortly, hoping he doesn't look quite as red-faced as he feels.  

“You cheated,” Tony insists, sitting down too close to him, knees touching again. He’s flushed and slightly sweaty, and it’s unfair that he somehow manages to still look attractive. “You wanted to dance.”

“It's not a song for dancing to. And I think I know myself better than you do.”

Tony raises his eyebrows in mock-incredulity - Gordon doesn’t _think_ it’s sincere- and suddenly they both start laughing again. Tony’s phone beeps; he checks it, still giggly.

“Midnight,” he grins, out of breath. “It’s midnight. How do you feel, being officially…”

“Old?” Gordon asks. He finishes his beer. “I feel very old.”

“We’re just kids,” Tony tells him. 

He shakes his head, feeling suddenly rather lost, a long way short of anything people wanted him to be, and from what he’d wanted to be, arriving in London. It wounds his pride, to be getting older and no wiser.

“Stop.” Tony says firmly. “You’re not going all sad millennial on me, ok?”

Gordon looks at him. His blue eyes are huge and beautiful and full of certainty.

“You’re going to own the shop,” Tony tells him, one arm around his shoulder. “We all know it’ll be yours one day. And you’ll be brilliant at it- you’ll make it brilliant. Like you always do.”

A strange claustrophobia grips Gordon, and he tries to name the feeling. Hope, he realises. Everyone else sells vinyls and CDs. Tony deals in hope.

“Right,” Gordon says, looking away. 

“And if you don't, I’ll become famous, and you can join my entourage and live off my fame and riches,” Tony adds, laughing. “You’ll make me look more Scottish.”

Gordon lowers his eyes and pretends to be amused, rather than - well. Rather than the way he actually feels about this.

Tony, quite suddenly, touches the side of his face, and Gordon jumps in shock, then finds himself holding his breath as Tony’s finger skates over his cheek. It's giving him goosebumps.

“Tony,” he says, shivering; Tony’s eyes widen at the slip. They watch each other for a long moment.

“Make a wish,” Tony whispers, showing him the loose eyelash that had been in stuck on Gordon’s cheekbone. 

Gordon closes his eyes and blows lightly on Tony's finger.  _I wish I could say no to you_ , he thinks, and opens his eyes again slowly. 

“Did you get your wish?” Tony asks, hopefully.

“No,” Gordon tells him, chest heavy with resignation.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up, he realises he’s being watched. Cherie - or if not Cherie, a woman bearing uncanny resemblance to Cherie’s frequent appearances on Tony’s Instagram - is staring him down, unimpressed, and he realises with acute embarrassment that Tony is tangled around him, one leg over his, arms around his waist, face buried peacefully in his shoulder. He feels like a gigantic teddy bear. He also feels hungover and vaguely guilty. Pulling as apologetic a face as he can manage in Cherie’s direction, he pushes Tony off, gingerly at first, then hard enough to send him flying off the couch and onto the floor. 

He panics. Tony yelps, flings a hand over his eyes, and begins making sleepy grumbling noises from the floor.

“Cherie, it’s Sunday,” he whines, eyes still closed. “You can’t push me out of the bed on _Sunday_. You promised.”

Gordon stares, frozen, at the floor, not daring to look up at Cherie. She kneels down next to Tony.

“It wasn’t me this time, dear.”

Gordon watches her prise Tony’s hands from his face. Tony peers up at her, then at Gordon, then back at Cherie, blinking. 

“Hey,” he says, as though there were no way in the world he would have preferred to wake up. “When did you arrive?”

“Three minutes ago,” she says, unamused. “Maybe I should have given prior notice, though. You looked busy, snuggling with your... friend.”

Gordon bites his lip and contemplates simply making his escape through the nearest window. The fall would almost certainly kill him, which would be an added bonus, since he’d never have to look at either Tony or Cherie ever again.

Tony beams at her, propping himself up on his elbows. 

“We were snuggling? ” he asks, blithely. “How cute. I must have thought he was you.”

The window looks increasingly enticing.

“Convincing,” she tells him, patently unconvinced. He grins and pulls her in for a kiss; Gordon tries not to wince too visibly, and averts his eyes.

“I _am_ a slut for snuggles,” he admits, when he finally finishes kissing her, and throws his arms around her neck. Cherie rolls her eyes.

Gordon clears his throat.

“I have to be going,”  he says. 

“Oh, do you really?” Tony asks, already snuggling with Cherie. “You could stay with us until it’s time for church. Have breakfast.”

“Which Tony will make,” Cherie says, immediately.

“Which I will make, yes,” he agrees obediently.

“No, I- it’s fine,” Gordon mumbles. “I really do have to go.”

“Ok,” Tony says, yawning and scrambling up from the floor to follow him. “Was it a good birthday, though?” he asks, trailing after Gordon as he lets himself out.

Gordon shrugs. 

A year later two boys called Ed walk into the shop one morning, and shortly afterwards Peter introduces him to a chain-smoking communist called Charlie, and he starts to enjoy birthdays a little more, after that.

 

 

\- After -

 

 

He dreams of Tony, though he’s not really Tony, and Gordon isn’t really himself - he’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tony is _Prime Minister_. This is a horrible idea if ever he heard one, for a series of reasons he can’t even begin to list.

“Please,” says Tony, kneeling, hands clasped as if in prayer. “ _Please_ show me the budget, Gordon, I’m begging you. I’ll do anything for you.” He licks his lips. “I would-”

His hands slide up Gordon’s legs. Normally, this is a situation Gordon welcomes with only slightly varying degrees of enthusiasm, but he finds himself taken aback. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, catching Tony’s hands and pinning them to his hip. “You’re the Prime Minister.”

“Yes,” Tony agrees, wide-eyed. “And you’re my Chancellor, and I want to see the Budget, so…” He trails off and wriggles his hands against Gordon’s leg, trying to shake free from his grip.

“No, I mean,” Gordon says, thoughtfully, “why would you accept this? You could just fire me.” 

Tony blinks.

“Maybe I don’t want to fire you?”

“Why not?” Gordon demands. “It’s a fucking farcical situation. The Prime Ministers on his knees begging to see the Budget? I don’t think so.”

Tony huffs. 

“Maybe I owe you,” he suggests. “I mean, why aren’t _you_ Prime Minister?”

Gordon knows exactly why he isn’t the Prime Minister in this fantasy, and it has nothing to do with fictional party politics. Even in his dreams, though, he’s not prepared to confess to a youthful infatuation with any occupant of No. 10. Not to Tony. 

“Maybe you stood aside for me,” Tony tries, “and I feel indebted to you.” Then he notices Gordon’s expression. “Well, I don’t fucking know, Gordon!” He gets up off of his knees and tugs his hands from Gordon’s, pulling a cigarette and lighter from his discarded suit jacket. “You are a weird guy, you know that?” 

Gordon frowns.

“I don’t see why.”

“I'm a _sex dream_ , Gordon. I exist solely as a product of your horny subconscious.” 

He takes a drag and sends a cloud of cigarette smoke up towards the office ceiling. Highly unrealistic, Gordon thinks. You’d never get away with smoking in government buildings these days. It's not the 90s any more.

“And yet here you are, using me to debate the internal mechanisms of a fantasy Labour government, that being the only L-word you can say.”

Gordon can feel his ears turning hot.

“Maybe you’re just a terrible sex dream.”

“Oh, _great_ ,” Tony says, with a dramatic gesture Gordon is fairly sure he’s never seen Tony use; his mind must have borrowed it from Peter. “Just blame everything on your dream boyfriend. That’ll solve all your problems.”

“Fuck off, Tony,” he snipes, furious. God, no wonder the man drives him insane.

Tony opens his mouth to reply, but no words emerge; instead, he emits the shrill ringing noise of Gordon’s mobile alarm, and then Gordon is waking up, sweaty and only slightly turned on.

 

* * *

 

There’s no conveniently placed mission waiting for him at the shop door today, but neither is Tony, so Gordon simply barricades himself in his office and buries himself in numbers until his head hurts. His phone feels heavy in his pocket. He must have listened to IMF’s voicemail half a dozen times, and it plays through his mind on repeat as he works. _A Mr. Peter Mandelson gave us this number and suggested you may be interested in a job offer…_

A job offer. From a record label. He hadn’t done anything properly musical since… not in forever. What the fuck is this? What is Peter fucking playing at? He can’t call them back and give Peter the satisfaction. He has to call back and find out what they want. He should swallow his pride and just go and ask Peter for details. He should... 

He draws up two columns

In the left-hand side, he puts _Tony said he loves me._

He sighs. His head hurts.

On the right, he writes _Tony took the shop._

 _What kind of person needs to write out pros and cons before they can say ‘I love you’ to their boyfriend?_ he wonders. It's not as though he could sort the real problem into two neat columns. Doubt and paranoia and unease fit poorly into columns, he's found. There's never enough space. He crushes the paper into a ball and throwing it at the bin. 

It misses, bouncing off the side, just as the office door swings open. More open, anyway; Gordon hadn’t been able to close it properly, because they’ve still not bought a new handle yet. Typical of Tony. Almost as typical as the smile he offers, bounding into the office.

“Found you!” he says with apparent pleasure, shutting the door and propping it closed with the chair. Gordon starts to feel trapped, almost claustrophobic. “You are a very difficult man to find, Gordon Brown.” 

He approaches, closing in, then kisses Gordon’s forehead far too tenderly. 

“Now. Can we talk like adults?” 

“I have to work, actually, s-” Gordon begins, but he knows it’s pointless; if Tony had any intention of letting him slip away, he wouldn’t have had barricaded the door.

“Work later,” Tony tells him, sitting on the desk. Gordon hates it when he does that; before the relaunch, when they’d used ledgers, it had made a mess of his papers. Now he has a laptop and exactly no excuse, but he still hates the way it forces him to stare at Tony’s legs. “Adult conversation, ok?”

“Ok,” Gordon concedes, flattening his hair. 

“So?”  Tony says, expectantly.

“So what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” 

“You said you weren't going to force me to say it!”

“No, Gordon.” Tony says, gently.  “I mean- why don’t you tell me what’s worrying you?” He stops and sighs, with the patience of someone talking to a small child. “I wouldn’t coerce you into saying you love me, Gordon.”

 _Yes, you would_ , Gordon thinks, but says nothing. 

“Hey,” Tony says, softly. “What’s the matter?”

Gordon can’t look at him directly, chews at his cheeks until he can’t quite stand the affection in Tony’s gaze.

“I feel like it was a- some sort of test,” he admits brusquely. _That I failed. Again,_ he thinks, staring at the wall.

Tony takes Gordon’s face in his hands. Gordon fights not to move away as Tony strokes a thumb over his cheek. 

“You never fail _me_ , Gordon. That’s not- that’s just not how it goes,” he says, kissing him again. Gordon twitches in irritation, as much at Tony’s stubborn belief in his own exceptionalism as at his effortless reading of Gordon’s thoughts. “It’s not a test,” Tony tells him again. “I just said it because I felt it, ok? It’s not a test.” 

Gordon doesn’t turn away when Tony kisses him on the mouth, gently and then much harder, and perhaps because it’s so much more inappropriate than usual, with Kate Bush’s _Song of Solomon_ filtering through from the shop - Harriet’s playlist - Gordon feels this might be something he can give in to, something to offer Tony whilst he struggles to say what Tony wants him to. He pulls Tony off the desk, into his lap, and they’re moving, grinding slowly, faster every time Tony moans Gordon’s name into his mouth. 

To his surprise, it’s Tony who pulls back, and stares at him, breathless and grimacing a little.  

“Er - sorry.” He’s flushing, voice full of self-pity. “But if we carry on like this, it will get…”

“Hard?” Gordon suggests, moving to kiss his neck again. Tony squirms and wriggles a little further away.

“That’s a foregone conclusion, as you can tell,” he admits wryly, moaning when Gordon tightens his grip on Tony’s legs. “ _Seriously_ , Gordon, I can’t handle this level of teasing at work.”

“Does it have to be teasing?” Gordon asks, kissing his shoulder. “The door is barred, isn’t it?”

Tony stops and stares at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, and Gordon worries immediately, because Tony never rejects sex, always wants sex, constantly has to be told _now is not the time_ , and sex in the office is probably the thing he wants the most in the whole wide world after power, money and undying fame. Gordon doesn’t get this.

Then Tony blinks, and before Gordon can find words, has climbed out of his lap and moved the Gordon's laptop from his desk. Then he hops onto the desk himself, pulling Gordon towards him by the shirt collar, pulling off his own t-shirt with his other hand.

“Come here,” Tony says, kissing him hard and fumbling with Gordon’s shirt buttons. “ _Christ_. This is brilliant. You’re a genius.”

“So just to be clear,” Gordon asks, only half teasing, even as he pushes Tony’s thighs further apart, “you do want to do this?”  

Tony wraps his legs around him.

“ _Yes_ ,” he gasps, hands in Gordon’s hair. “This is a _great_ idea and I completely approve.”

Gordon laughs and kisses Tony’s chest, very gentle and then rougher, biting a little, the way he knows drives Tony crazy.

“You’re brilliant,” Tony says, arching his back as Gordon kisses him again. “You’re so perfect. I lo-”

There’s a knock on the door. Gordon is almost grateful; Tony would have said it again, and Gordon would have been compelled to do something stupid. Stupider.

“Tony, are you still in there?” Harriet’s voice is muffled, through the door, but audibly amused. “You guys were... busy… and now Jez and the other two are in the shop.”

Gordon and Tony stare at each other for a moment in mute, mutual horror, but it’s Tony who moves first; his legs tighten around Gordon's, and he pins his hands to the desk before he can move.

“We’ll deal with it in a minute, Harriet!” Tony calls. He relinquishes Gordon’s hands and begins undoing his belt instead. “This doesn’t have to take long,” he promises under his breath, kissing Gordon again. 

“Sure,” says Harriet from the corridor, sounding dubious, and then her footsteps recede as she returns to the shop floor.

He could escape Tony easily. He’s not sure why he doesn’t. Maybe it’s guilt, or the need to compensate, or whatever pseudopsychology Tony would employ to explain his own feelings to him. Maybe it’s just that he wants to. Either way, he relents, getting back to the business of kissing Tony, pushing Tony’s jeans down. He moves back just a little to watch Tony moan and gasp, almost naked, on his desk. As ever, he feels grimly satisfied at being able to do this to him, peel away eloquent, charismatic polish that normally overlays Tony’s every action.  

“Gordon, come on,” he whines. “You promised this wasn’t teasing.” He hasn’t begged yet, but Gordon knows he will, if pushed enough. “Just get on with it.”

Gordon smiles and gestures for Tony to turn around, which he does with admirable speed.

“In my bag,” he says, before Gordon can even ask. “But hurry.”

“Alright,” Gordon concedes, and goes for Tony’s bag.

There’s another knock on the door.

“Hey, Tony.” It’s Robin. Gordon frowns. “Just to let you know that Jez is here-”

“Yes, we know-"

“-and he’s got a massive marrow.”

“A _what_?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“A marrow, a huge marrow,” Robin explains through the door. “And he won’t leave, and-”

“We’ll be there in just a moment, Robin,” Tony says, somehow managing to keep his voice steady.

“Right. Ok,” Robin snaps, clearly annoyed, and goes back into the store. Gordon chews his lip, still holding Tony’s bag.

“Maybe we should…”

“No,” Tony says, with the absolute authority of a man bent over Gordon’s desk in nothing but a pair of _48%_ pants. “Let them solve it, it’s good for them. Makes for a stronger team.”

“It sounds bad, though,” Gordon says, distracted. “Maybe we should-”

“Gordon, don’t do this to me,” Tony pleads, just the way Gordon likes, and he looks so _good_ like this, hair messy and eyes wide. Affection blossoms in his chest, and he runs a hand down Tony’s back, then through his hair again, pushing Tony’s head down gently and eliciting a moan. Suddenly, the words that have been on Gordon’s mind don’t feel quite so heavy.

“Tony-” he says, thoughtfully.

They both hear the crash, even from the office, and Tony wriggles in annoyance and alarm.

“Tony!” Margaret calls, urgently, hammering on the office door. 

“What is it, Margaret?” he squeaks, in desperation.

“Jez broke the floor.”

“He _what_?” Gordon asks, letting go of Tony and pulling his shirt back on. Tony utters a tiny noise of utter frustration. He looks like he might cry.

“He’s broken the floorboards,” Margaret explains. “Quite a few. With a marrow?”

“I hate him,” Tony mumbles into the desk. He looks so defeated that Gordon almost feels sorry for him. “I hate everything. I hate you.”

“I’m going to throw them out,” Gordon says, grimly. “You don’t have to come.” He takes a deep breath, thinking of poll taxes and fox-hunters and Tory migration targets until his jeans feel less conspicuously tight. “We can finish this at home.”  

Tony sinks into the chair, expression wretched.

Gordon goes to deal with a broken floorboard, three self-appointed leaders of the socialist revolution, and a smashed marrow. And he feels good. The doubts that had vanished in the office neglect to return, and after calling Frank about fixing the floorboards he leaves a message with the number IMF gave him and tells them he’s free for dinner that evening. He doesn’t even hesitate when they reply with a restaurant and a time.

 

* * *

 

By afternoon, however, his resolve is crumbling. The original plan was simple; meet them, decline the offer, go home to Tony, to whom he would one day say _I love you_. Now that seems tiresome and rash; he can’t even afford the place they’re meeting at. He should probably just call. He should just not go. Maybe he shouldn’t decline the job.

He’s not sure what he should do, so what he does is what he always does when he’s not sure. 

 _Why did you give that label my number?_ he texts Peter. The tone is too accusatory, which he half-regrets. 

_You’re welcome for the incredible job opportunity._

Gordon chews his fingernails before replying.

 _I’m meeting them for dinner,_ he types. _To refuse in person._

 _Hm,_ Peter replies. What the fuck does that mean? 

_You don’t think I should go?_

_Hm,_ Peter replies again, and Gordon immediately regrets having texted him in the first place.

_What the fuck does that mean?_

_It’s polite to meet them, if you've asked them to meet you._ Gordon grimaces. Trust Peter to guess that he’d been the one to suggest a meeting. 

_And you might like their offer. Though it would mean leaving Red’s._

Peter is the world’s most unhelpful man and Gordon hates him profoundly and wishes they had never entered this period of _détente._

_Could you give me a straight answer? What should I do?_

_Hm._

Christ. 

_Fuck you, Peter._

 

* * *

 

Arriving at the restaurant, he’s not quite sure of who to look for, but the waitress is expecting him and shows him to a table until a man in a leather jacket comes up to him and offers his hand.

“Michel,” he says.

He’s French, Gordon thinks, and he looks… well. More important that Gordon.

 _Get a grip_ , he thinks. He’s not Tony. He doesn’t chase older men with money. He’s here to tell this guy he’s not interested in any offers. Of any kind.

“You are Gordon?” His voice is thickly accented. Gordon has never been to France. He’s been to the US with Tony, and to Berlin to play with Robin, but never to France. He should go to France. “It’s nice to meet you in the flesh.” 

“Thank you,” he says, staring at the menu and food he can’t afford. “Er, just water, please,” he tells the waiter. Michel orders a red.

“I am executive director at the label,” Michel explains, when the waiter leaves. “You know this already.” 

“Hm.” Gordon clears his throat. “Yes.” He forces himself to meet Michel’s gaze. He’s not even that old. Late 40s at most. Gordon feels suddenly deeply unaccomplished. “Actually, I’ve just came to say that while I appreciate the offer, I’m not interested.”

Michel smiles.

“You are…” he searches for the word for a moment. “Very upfront. That’s good.” The waiter comes with their drinks; Michel thanks him and looks at Gordon again, twirling the stem of the wineglass. “I will be upfront with you too.”

Gordon watches him take a sip.

“We have close ties with a conglomerate,” he says absently. Gordon feels he knows what’s coming next. “I think you know them. Yamata are a shareholder of some importance in the company. They’re on the board.” He sighs. “If it helps-” he begins.

“You’ve worked with Red’s as well,” Gordon finishes. “In the seventies. Yes.” He tries not to sound bitter. “Didn’t do our reputation much good.” 

Michel smiles apologetically.

“Their man on the board put your name forward. Privately, he tells me they don’t think your friend will keep Red’s without you.”

“I see.” Gordon says, avoiding Michel’s eyes and fiddling with his hair.

“Now I have told you,” he says with a shrug. He sips his wine again and smiles more sincerely. “But I think your work is good.”

Gordon looks at him, a little surprised.

“I am serious. Very good,” he assures Gordon. “We heard your album. With Robin Cook.  _The Divide_? You understand music.”

Gordon feels himself blush, then resents himself for being so easily flattered 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not...” 

Except suddenly he is. 

“Ever produced an album?” Michel asks, tilting his head to one side.

“Did almost everything on  _Divide_.”

Michel smiles.

“A deaf man could have told me that,” he says. Gordon feels strange, as though receiving approval of some higher order than a musical expert; from God, his father would say, or just from the universe itself. “And with almost no resources, too. You’d be a fine producer in Washington.”

“Washington?” Gordon says, mostly to himself. He realises, suddenly, that he wants it; like he’d always wanted Red’s, through every night of unpaid overtime; like he’d wanted it when he’d first seen it, awful and ancient and alive with possibility; like he’d wanted it the day Tony got it instead.

Michel’s smile gets larger; he leans in a little. 

“Why don’t we order food and talk properly?”

He does. He doesn’t even feel guilty. 

 

* * *

 

When he gets home, Tony is in his shower. It’s still odd, that Tony has his key, can slip in and out of Gordon’s life at will. He’s tidied Gordon’s living room in a somewhat haphazard fashion, and made some kind of goats’ cheese ravioli with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, which is the only thing Tony knows how to cook beyond toast, omelettes and hot dogs. It’s meant to make him feel guilty, though, and it works; he feels like a cheating husband slipping a ring back into his finger. 

There’s a noise in the bathroom, and the water stops running.  

“Oh, hello,” Tony says, emerging from the shower still dripping wet, a towel hastily tied around his waist. “I was expecting you for dinner.”

Gordon clears his throat awkwardly. It’s not fair of Tony to be both accusing _and_ half-naked. He struggles enough with these qualities in isolation.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t look at Tony in the eye.  “I went for a drink."

Tony nods, and makes not move to return to his shower. For a moment Gordon thinks he could just move forward and kiss him and-

“Just out of curiosity,” Tony says, thoughtfully. “Who with?”

“A friend.”

Tony nods again, smiling pleasantly.

“Which one?”

Gordon frowns, annoyed.

“Nobody you know,” he replies a little shortly.

“Oh?” Tony says, smile frozen and harsh. “No record label representatives, then?” 

Gordon flushes red. He feels like a child caught in wrongdoing and forced to face the consequences; he feels wronged and hunted and trapped by Tony, who has spied on him, has somehow found out things he shouldn’t, who doesn't trust him. It’s hardly Gordon’s fault that he has to lie just to retain scrap of privacy from Tony and Tony’s controlling instincts.

“Did fucking _Peter_ fucking tell you?” he asks, anger stewing in his chest. “I didn’t- he can’t-" 

“Of course Peter told me!” Tony says, voice shrill. “Peter tells me _everything_ , unlike you!”

“Well, it’s nice to see my old friends so devoted to doing your dirty work,” Gordon snaps, grinding his knuckles into the kitchen table in an attempt not to punch anything. “But get them to leave my life alone!”

“Oh, fuck off, Gordon!” Tony shouts. Gordon knows he doesn’t usually yell back until he’s beyond any normal measure of fury. “You fucking _lied_ to me!”

“I didn’t lie-”

“Oh, don’t give me bizarre presbyterian semantics. You aimed to mislead,” Tony tells him. “Admit it, Gordon, you’re betraying your precious fucking shop!” 

Unthinking rage short-circuits Gordon’s brain, and there’s a crash; one of the plates lies shattered on the floor, shards everywhere. 

“You don’t get to lecture me about betraying the shop!” Gordon shouts. His hands are shaking. “You don’t get to lecture me about Red’s.”

Tony blinks, unimpressed. His hair is still dripping wet, and he smells of Gordon’s soap. It’s disorienting how that cuts through the haze of anger; he wants Tony, even as he wants to push him away. He’d have to be blind - blinder - not to recognise it for another control tactic, though. Dinner, sex, even _I love you_. It’s all about control.

“You’re threatening Red’s right now,” Tony tells him. His voice is measured, but cold in a way that makes Gordon flinch. “Leaving threatens everything we’ve done.” 

Gordon walks towards him, ceramic fragments crunching under his shoes, until their faces are close.

“I’ve done more for Red’s than anyone,” he growls at Tony. The name burns his throat. “I’ve done more for Red’s than _you_ ever will.”

They stare at each other, breathless and electric. Gordon wants him so much - more than usual, even, and desire creates a fissure in him between the man who wants open his mouth and tell Tony that he’s in love with him, and the man who wants to walk out, escape this nonsense and leave him forever.

“If you go,” Tony says, slowly, spitefully, “I’ll shut Red’s down. I’ll take the first offer to get rid of it and I’ll go and get a tan somewhere nice and let it run itself into the ground.”

“You wouldn’t,” Gordon says, but he doesn’t believe it. Tony has him on a very long leash, but has him nonetheless.

“Watch me.” 

Gordon clenches his jaw, hands balled into fists.

“You can’t blackmail me,” he says, at last. “You can’t just _keep_ me. I deserve a chance to- I deserve a life of my own.”

“What for?” Tony asks, brow furrowing in confusion. “What’s the point of having a life of your own, if it’s not with me?”

It’s a ridiculous question. It’s painfully true. Gordon wants to hit him. Failing that, he wants to fuck him over the dinner table. Neither will do either of them any good, so he steps back and grabs his phone, his wallet, his keys. 

“I’m not staying here with you,” he mutters.

“Wait,” Tony says, taking his arm, voice urgent. “Do you want to hate-fuck this out?” 

The offer is far too tempting, but accepting it would require giving in to Tony’s manipulation game. Instead, he pulls his arm from Tony’s grasp, and leaves.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

\- Before -

 

The coughing is obvious but also unimportant; it’s winter, and everyone has a cough, except Philip, who seems curiously immune to everything, and who may actually be immortal. Gordon doesn’t worry about Tony’s cough anymore than he worries about Peter’s, or his own. 

The blood changes things, of course. Not even Gordon - already starting to maroon himself in the office - can ignore that. But when, on his way to show John the new payroll, he runs into Tony coming out of the toilet with blood on his lips, he can’t quite conceal his horror.

“Oh, yeah - from my cold,” Tony explains, voice croaky. He tries to wipe it away, and laughs, looking almost embarrassed. “Coughing up blood like the heroine of some melodrama, isn’t it ridiculous?”

He looks pale. Gordon realises, guiltily, that he’s looked pale for days. He should have noticed it sooner, done something about it. He feels he’s failed as a friend. He’s supposed to know these things. It’s supposed to be obvious.

“You’re _coughing up blood_?” Peter asks, startling Gordon. He comes out from behind the counter and examines Tony with almost maternal care. “Tony, what are you doing here in your state?”

He touches Tony’s forehead gently, trying to gauge his temperature, and Gordon feels a childish, ridiculous sting of jealousy watching Tony lean into the touch, awaiting further instructions.

“You have a fever,” Peter says, worried. “Go home.”

Tony smiles. He’s clearly tempted.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to send me home, Peter. And it’s really nothing, anyway,” he adds, looking at Gordon beseechingly. Peter scoffs.

“Tell him to go home, Gordon, he listens to you,”  he says, sounding a little hurt. “Though he’s technically not allowed either, you know,” he tells Tony.

“Ah, but John listens to Gordon, too,” Tony teases, and then coughs a little. He looks at Gordon, attempting a self-deprecating grin. “I’m fine.”

“You are _not_ ,” Peter says, still concerned. He looks at Gordon. “He’s not.” Behind him, someone rings the bell on the counter, and Peter sighs. “That’ll be John,” he says, with obvious disdain.

“How can you tell?” Tony asks, curious.

“Nobody else rings that fucking bell, do they?” Peter says, smile icy. He looks back at Gordon again, expression meaningful. “Tell him to go home.”

Peter leaves them alone together, Tony staring at him with big blue eyes a little bloodshot, pale and visibly tired. Gordon, trying not to stare at him, wonders what to do.

“You’re sick,” Gordon tells him. Tony waves it off. 

“Just a bit of flu,” he coughs, still hoarse. “ _You_ were ill last week and you came in every day.”

“I-”

“And you’re fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Be careful,” Gordon tells him, gently. But he doesn’t insist. He can’t insist. It would betray too much feeling, and he can’t do that again. 

 

* * *

 

Tony isn’t there the next day, so all he can think about is Tony.

He tells himself it’s not excessive to be concerned; he tells Peter, too, who agrees. Tony hasn’t called in sick, even after Gordon makes Peter text him. Tony’s absence is pervasive, worrying, makes work difficult, and bothers him enough that at the end of the day he realises he’d forgotten to charge for a copy of _London Calling_. He hasn’t slipped up like that in years; can’t afford to, now that he’s paying for the car.  

It’s not until Peter invites him back to his place, though, as they finish closing the shop, that he realises how worried he is. 

“Can’t,” he mumbles. “I’m going to go and check on Tony.”

“You’re going to his flat?” Peter asks, looping his long football scarf around his neck, Oxbridge style.

“Just to check on him,” Gordon mutters again. He hesitates. “Do you think I shouldn’t?”

“No, you should,” Peter tells him, voice reassuring. “I was just thinking - Cherie.”

“Oh.” Gordon bites his cheeks for a moment. He has no desire to run into Cherie again. Not after last time. He hadn’t told Peter about the cuddling incident, but he’s not surprised that he seems to know about it anyway. Tony probably thought it was a very funny story.

Peter shrugs.

“If she’s with him, she’s not made him answer his phone,” he points out. “Maybe she’s away.”

Gordon nods, wracked with doubt. Peter notices it, of course. Peter knows him perfectly.

“You should go, Gordon,” he says, softly. “He hates having you out of his sight, anyway.”

Gordon pretends not to have heard him.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that he’s surprised, exactly, when the door is opened by a man in his underpants; he’s more surprised that the man in question isn’t Tony. Gordon blinks, and then stares at the ground, confused and embarrassed. He hadn’t thought Tony would ever cheat on Cherie. He hadn’t thought that if he did, it might be with a man. He hadn’t thought that if Tony would cheat on Cherie with a man, it’d be someone other than him.

And he’s going to _kill_ Tony if he’s skipped work to spend the day having sex.

“Er, hello,” the man says, obviously just as confused as Gordon. “Can I help?” 

There’s a pause. Gordon scrambles for words.

“Tony,” he says, finally. The man shrugs. 

“No. Sorry, mate, wrong house.” He moves to close the door, and Gordon panics and jams it open with his foot.

This man doesn’t know Tony, or that he’s in Tony’s flat, which means that he’s here without Tony’s knowledge and probably without permission, whilst Tony is in A&E or at the hospital or God knows where. The thought makes him angry enough to prise the door back open.

“I need to speak to Tony,” he says, grimly. “He lives here.”

“I promise you, mate, you’ve got the wrong place,” the man says, clearly alarmed. Gordon doesn’t care.

“Well, this is his fucking _house_ -” he starts. He’s interrupted by a noise from the kitchen.

“Darling, what’s going on?” Cherie asks, and then comes to the door, wearing a man’s shirt. _Too large to be Tony’s_ , Gordon thinks. “Oh,” she says, recognising Gordon, and remembering that she hates him. “You.”

“I’ve come to see Tony.” Gordon tells her. She smiles coldly.

“Not my problem anymore,” she says. “We broke up two weeks ago.” 

This is apparently news to the man in his underpants, who looks rather upset. Gordon wonders how long they’ve been together. Longer than a fortnight, it would seem.

“I’m sure Tony will survive,” she says, looking bored. “Now, if you would-?” She attempts to close the door. Gordon doesn’t move his foot. He came here for Tony and he’ll find him. 

“He didn’t come to work this morning,” he says, trying to keep the accusatory note from his voice. “And he’s been ill.”

“Call him,” she says, voice tight.

“We did. No reply.” 

Cherie hesitates.

“He was coughing up blood yesterday,” Gordon adds, and she grimaces.

“I’ll find you his new address,” she promises, scrolling through her contacts. “Oh, here- give me your phone.” 

He hands it over and she enters the address for him.

“Gordon,” she says, handing his phone back. “Do tell him to give me call when you see him.” 

He nods curtly and hurries away without thanking her. He’s not getting any less worried. 

 

* * *

 

When Gordon knocks on the door of Tony’s new flat there’s no reply. He hesitates for a moment, and knocks again. Still nothing. He tries the handle, and the door opens with ease. Worry makes his throat tighten, and he walks in.

Tony’s new apartment is much smaller and shabbier than the old one. It’s cold, too. Gordon notices a broken window, inexpertly covered with paper and sellotape, and wonders how long Tony has been sleeping here, doubtles worsening his condition.

He finds Tony lying face-down on the couch, alarmingly pale, and Gordon’s heart hammers in alarm as he touches Tony’s forehead. His skin is cold and sweaty, and his lips are almost blue. Gordon feels like he’s trapped in a nightmare.

“Tony,” he pleads. “Wake up.”

Tony has a pulse, and Gordon can hear his ragged breaths, but he still looks frighteningly small and lifeless.

He texts Peter.

_Tony fainted. Taking him to hospital._

He puts an arm around Tony, lifting him from the cough. There’s a sharp intake of breath; Tony coughs violently, then opens his eyes.

“Hey,” he croaks. He struggles to summon his usual smile. “Sorry about this. I think I have a fever.” He seems almost too tired to speak, voice hoarse. When Gordon tries to set him on his feet, his knees buckle and he almost collapses again. 

“Yeah,” Gordon says, practically carrying Tony to the lift. “Just try to stay awake.” He tries not to sound as scared as he feels.

“Sorry,” Tony says, trying to keep steady. “I’m just exhausted, you know?” 

He coughs again. When he takes his hand from his mouth, it’s speckled with blood.

“You’re fine,” Gordon says, because he wants to hear the words himself. “You’ll be fine.”

 _I’ll be better,_ he vows quietly, as he helps Tony into the car. _If he lives, if it’s not serious, I’ll be better. I won’t touch him again. I won’t even think about him. I’ll be better. Keep him safe, keep him from ever passing out on the back seat of my car again, and I’ll leave him alone._

 

* * *

 

He paces up and down in the waiting room until a nurse arrives to assure him that it’s nothing serious; a particularly resistant type of pneumonia and severe dehydration. They want to check for complications, but don’t think it likely. Gordon nods and phones Peter to tell him the news.

“I’ll be with you in half an hour,” Peter tells him.

“You don’t have to-”

“Half an hour,” Peter insists. “When do visiting hours end?”

“Ten. He’ll probably be out in a day or two,” Gordon tells him. “Depending on how quickly they can get him tested. Bring Kit Kats.” The ones he keeps in his coat have gone missing, and he’s resorted to chewing his fingernails to calm his nerves.

The nurse tells him that Tony is awake but groggy from medication, if Gordon wants to see him, and he hesitates, thinking of his promise. He doesn’t know how to explain to the nurse, though- _I made a bargain for his life with a God I’m not sure I believe in and now I’m not allowed to touch him_ sounds ridiculous- so he follows her obediently through the corridor and allows her to usher him onto Tony’s ward.

He hates hospitals. He hates illnesses. He’s not quite sure what to say when he sees Tony with the saline drip over his bed and the IV line in his arm, wearing papery hospital clothes and a tired, fragile look, so unlike his usual self. His eyes are bright again, though a touch unfocused, and he smiles when he sees Gordon.

“Hey!” he says, voice sleepy and faintly slurred. He sounds happy, though. “Thank you for…” 

He seems not to know quite what to thank him for, though, and simply waves his hand expressively before catching sight of the intravenous tube and staring at it in apparent confusion. 

“’s alright,” Gordon mutters, trying not to look at him.

“I’ve been living in a new flat. The walls are blue.” Tony says, voice knowing and conspiratorial. “You know how it is.” The hand not wired up to intravenous rehydration, Gordon suddenly notices, is clutching a Kit Kat, and he realises with a stab of amusement that Tony must have picked his pocket whilst being carried to the car.

“I do,” he agrees, trying not to smile. There’s no point expecting sense from a man chewing thoughtfully on a fully-wrapped Kit Kat. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“Thank you!” Tony says brightly, when he stops biting at the plastic wrapper. He looks at Gordon then, face glowing with affection. “I really love you, Gordon.”

(This, later, is the hardest part to remember: He hadn’t even hesitated to reply, not then, with the fear of losing Tony so recent and Tony far too drugged to remember this, ever.)

“I love you too,” he admits, very softly. 

Tony smiles, then yawns, and then very slowly drifts off to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

Gordon’s woken by Peter nudging him, and he blinks at the bright hospital lighting. His back hurts. Peter looks tired but fond; Gordon shifts slightly in the plastic chair, and Tony beams at him from the hospital bed. The sharpness is back in his eyes, and he looks less pale. Gordon relaxes a little.

“Gordon,” Peter says gently. “Sorry to wake you, dear, but I’m going for coffee and I was wondering if you wanted one.” 

“I’m alright,” he replies, still examining Tony, who watches back cheerfully. Gordon’s relief is ridiculous. “How are you?”

“Great,” Tony assures him. He sounds it.

“Good.”

“Thank you, by the way. For yesterday.”

“It’s fine,” Gordon says, quickly. “You’d do the same for me.” He clears his throat. “Us.”

“Of course,” Tony nods. “I just said the same to Peter. Whatever you need.”

Gordon glances back at Peter now, whose smile is knowing. _My God, you’re obvious._ Gordon pretends not to understand. 

“Coffee would be good, actually, Peter,” he says; anything but Peter’s smug smile would be good.

“Sure, darling,” he says, and turns to Tony. “You want anything?”

Tony shakes his head.

“Not allowed. With the dehydration. And my mouth tastes like plastic, to be honest.”

Gordon laughs quietly at that, and Peter looks faintly bemused, but leaves for coffee anyway. 

“Gordon,” Tony calls quietly, adjusting himself in the bed. “Can you come closer?”

He approaches a little warily, because Tony’s not wearing a shirt, and something stupid and chaste in him - the memory of his promises earlier, or his natural awkwardness - flushes at the thought of it.

“Gordon, I think I said something stupid earlier,” Tony tells him, looking troubled. “And I can’t remember what it was, but I think I can guess.”

Gordon wants to look away, but looking down means staring at Tony’s bare chest, so he keeps looking at Tony, wondering how to explain why he’d said _I love you_ to someone he’d only known for four months, and not even terribly well.

“Did I make you pray to a saint?” Tony asks, cringing slightly. “God, I’m so sorry. I know you don’t do- it’s a Catholic thing, I think- well, anyway, I was really out of it.”

“It’s alright,” Gordon says quickly, afraid of incriminating himself. “It’s fine. You didn’t know what you were saying. You weren’t well.”

“Which one was it?” Tony asks, still a little embarrassed, amusement creeping into his face.

“Oh, er - Francis of Assisi.” Gordon wants to kick himself, but he’s the only one he can remember. “Very Margaret Thatcher of you.”

“Christ,” Tony laughs, eyes widening. “You are a real friend, Gordon, thank you.”

“Well, you know,” says Gordon, shrugging, “I’ve often thought that _where there is discord, may we bring harmony_ would be a good company motto for Red’s.”

It’s not as funny as it sounded in his head, but Tony laughs, and then can’t stop, and Peter returns with coffee in time to witness his fit of giggles, raising an eyebrow at Gordon, and Gordon decides they might be fine like this, just this, nothing more.

 

\- After -

 

His back is killing him from sleeping on the plastic chair in his office; he’s not as young as he used to be. He's in his twenties, but it might as well be his forties; he's doesn’t have any of the things he wanted, hadn't done any of the things he'd planned when he first arrived in London, and they only feel further and further away.

There are sixty unread messages on his phone, most from Tony, a handful from Peter, a couple of collectors, customers, people buying and selling.

The first one reads: _Please call me. I'm sorry you upset me._

The last is a voice post of Tony singing _Someone Like You._

Gordon puts his phone on silent and goes to find somewhere for breakfast. It’s still early; none of the others will arrive at the shop for hours, so he doesn’t have to worry about avoiding Tony just yet. 

He tells himself, sternly, not to think about Tony, or Michel, then mentally re-traces his conversation with both, a hundred times, a thousand times, until his head aches and he’s no longer sure of what actually happened and what are post-hoc reinterpretations of what actually happened. 

Up ahead, his thoughts are interrupted by what can only be described as screeching. Familiar screeching, at that. 

Mac bangs on the cafe door and screams.

“Oh, come on, you _fascists_!” he complains. “I was _one pound_ short!” 

Gordon is about to turn around and walk away, but it’s too late - Mac has caught sight of him.

“What are you doing here?” he demands. 

“Nothing,” Gordon says, bluntly, before realising how meek it sounds, “you fuckhead.” Mac bristles, but doesn’t lash out.

“Fuck off, Brown. Fuck off back to your fucking useless owner.”

He turns away, busying himself counting small change from his pocket pathetically. An ancient guilt prods at Gordon. It’s bothersome.

“John,” he says. Mac looks up at him in surprise. People don’t call him John. “I have a pound spare.”

Mac’s eyes narrow.

“Nothing to write home about, you dick.” Christ. He should just leave this bastard to starve to death. Not that he can actually do that, of course, but he can dream.

“I can lend you the money,” he snaps. “For breakfast. If you’re short.”

Mac peers at him in deep suspicion. 

“What the fuck for?”

“Charity,” Gordon tells him, “is the means whereby the bourgeoisie relieve their guilt as beneficiaries of an unjust system, and thereby justify their role in its perpetuation.” 

Mac considers this a moment.

“Marx?” he asks, still suspicious. 

“Brown,” Gordon says, with just a touch of pride. “My dissertation.”

Mac almost smiles, before catching himself, and when Gordon walks into the cafe, he follows. 

 

* * *

 

Gordon lends him the money, and Mac gets coffee, and Gordon gets croissants, and is mocked for it by Mac. They end up talking in the queue, a little more than they want to, certainly more than they ever have. Gordon doesn’t suddenly discover that he likes him. Mac is impossible to like. But it’s a sudden relief to be able to talk to someone about something other than whether he’s going to leave his shop and his boyfriend forever, even if it just petty sniping.

“God, social democrats,” Mac rails, stealing a bit of Gordon’s croissant. “The system we live in is diseased and immoral and all you have to offer is a fucking _surplus_.”

“Oh?” Gordon asks. “What would you offer them instead? Nationalised railways? Hardly more exciting, is it?”

Mac shakes his head. 

“You, mate,” he says, “are the leftist intellectual equivalent of edging.” He crosses his arms. “You get as close to liberation as you can go and then you pull out.”

“Oh, compelling.”

“It’s fucking true, isn’t it?” he says, following Gordon from the cafe and stealing more croissant. 

“My leftist intellectual edging,” Gordon tells him, “actually wins elections.” 

“Well, if you consider four wars and the fucking Millennium Dome victories...”

“I’m not defending the Millennium Dome,” Gordon jokes, awkwardly. They both laugh. It’s a bit strange. They stand in the street for a moment, staring at each other.

“I have to-” Gordon says, gesturing in the direction of the shop.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mac says, flippant. “Don’t want to strain the leash, do you?”

Usually, he’d get angry. The words sound slightly hollow today, though. Gordon frowns.

“Why do you need to be dickhead for no reason?” 

Mac shrugs, a little uncomfortable. 

“Aren’t you ever a dickhead just because you can be?”

It’s not an answer Gordon likes, and it’s clearly not an answer Mac likes to give either, so they go their separate ways.

 

* * *

 

The office is very small, and a little cramped with both Eds, Charlie and Gordon all inside. Tony hadn’t attempted to stop them coming in to see him, and Gordon is relieved; the two of them have spent the day in a sort of cold war, Tony sending him beseeching looks with damp, doelike eyes, and Gordon resolutely ignoring him.

“I need some advice,” Gordon confesses. He’s not sure he knows how to word this. “I’ve received a job offer.” 

“Out of the question,” Charlie tells him. “You’re not leaving the store to the toothy fucker. He’d bring back fucking _Trousers_. Again.” Gordon winces. Tony probably would bring Peter back. Not that that’s the worst idea he’s ever heard, come to think of it, but-

“Let Gordon tell us what’s going on, Charlie,” Ed says, pushing his owly specs up his nose. Gordon takes a breath. 

“You know IMF?” he says, slowly. 

“The one with the French owner?” the other Ed asks. “They do some great stuff for indie artists.” He turns to Ed. “Didn’t they help you and Eddie G with _Independence_?”

“That was just us. We got some good advice from their people on it, though.”

Gordon nods, trying not to feel too guilty about Eddie, then coughs and continues.

“They want me to work for them. As a producer.”

“That’s brilliant,” Ed says, immediately. “You have to go. You have to.”

“You can’t,” Charlie says, shaking his head. He shrugs at Ed’s incredulous expression. “He can’t let that bastard have the shop!”

“Sod Tony,” Ed says, contemptuously. “The shop doesn’t matter. Gordon deserves it.” 

“The shop does matter,” Gordon intervenes. This part is more difficult. “I was asked as a favour to our friendly neighbourhood conglomerate.”

The other Ed straightens up, interested.

“See!” Charlie announces, triumphantly. “Tell that guy to go fuck himself.”

“It’s not really that simple,” Gordon sighs, but none of them seem to be listening.

Gordon hesitates. His head hurts. He had hoped talking to them would help unravel the problem, that their advice would help, but Charlie and Ed are squabbling, talking about the job and the conglomerate, and he doesn’t know how to explain to them that these aren’t the real issues. The real issue is that Tony loves him, or is pretending to love him in order to control him, or that Tony loves him in a weird, horrible, oppressive, Tonyish way, or that he feels something for Tony, and that it might be love, and maybe shouldn’t be love.

He sighs.  

“Tony doesn’t want me to go.”

“Who the fuck cares about what Tony wants?” Charlie says, almost spitting the name out. “What matters is the store. It belongs to you.”

“Maybe Washington belongs to me,” Gordon mutters to himself, chewing at his thumbnail. 

They hear him, though; Charlie’s mouth drops open. His fists clench. Ed puts his pen down, looking serious. The other Ed continues to watch them all, expression inscrutable.

“Washington?” Charlie splutters. “Washington _D.C._?”

Gordon avoids his gaze.

“That’s where the job is, yes.”

“You can’t. You _can’t_ -” he starts. Then he stops, red faced. A particularly heavy silence falls between them as Charlie stares at Gordon, thinking. “I think,” he says, slowly, “that you should listen to Tony."

Ed’s head snaps round; he stares at Charlie in disbelief.

“He can and he shouldn’t,” he says, firmly. “He’s been invited to do the job of his dreams.”

“This is the job of his dreams!” Charlie insists. “He can’t just go!”

“Yeah, he can,” Ed pushes back. “He wanted the shop, but Tony got it, and this is better. He doesn’t have to stay here for us, Charlie.”

Gordon doesn’t say anything. He thinks he’s getting a headache.

There’s a knock, and Margaret pops her head around the office door. She looks faintly surprised to see the kids, but smiles politely at them anyway.

“Gordon,” she says. “Tony wants to know if you’ve got this month’s spreadsheet yet.”

Ed scoffs. 

“It’s only the 15th,” he says, incredulous. “Can’t he _count_?”

She shrugs, and returns to the shop. Ed is about to say something else, but Gordon spots his opportunity.

“No, I’ll get on with it,” he says, brightening at the prospect of being left alone. He pretends not to notice Charlie’s pleading look. “You guys should go.” 

Ed shrugs, slaps him on the back and bounces out, brushing the hair from his eyes. Charlie looks unhappy, but follows him out, because Gordon asked.

The other Ed hesitates.

“Are you ok?” he asks, quietly. Gordon shrugs. 

“You should do what feels right,” Ed says, seriousness making him look older. “Even if it hurts Tony, or Charlie, or the shop. It’s more important that you feel you’ve done what’s right.” He doesn’t say anything else; then he nods, and leaves.

Gordon isn’t sure that this advice is helpful. Everyone seems to want him to do something, and he can’t help but feel he’s run out of time.

 

* * *

 

The message comes that afternoon. It makes his phone ping, and he avoids looking at it, guiltily, until he can convince himself that he needs to use his mobile for calculations.  

Even though he can do these sums in his head.

 _Hey, Gordon. Fancy coming to a party this evening? I want to talk, but a friend is insisting on my presence._  

It’s friendly, a touch unorthodox, but he is in the music industry, after all. IMF are still interested in him, despite his evasions over dinner; because of the conglomerate, or because Michel thinks he’s good. And he could become a producer, get into music, properly into music, and then he could do anything. There’s so much potential in this job, if he takes it. There’s so little potential here, if he stays. 

He re-reads the message. 

 _This is better,_ Ed insists. 

 _Hm,_ says Peter. 

 _Listen to Tony,_ Charlie tells him.

 _What’s the point of having a life of your own if it’s not with me?_ Tony asks.

 _Ok,_ he replies. 

The next message comes through suspiciously quickly.

_Good. Fair warning - it’s fancy dress. 80s themed._

Gordon actually finds himself smiling at that. 

_Not in a million years._

_No, I thought not. At least I’ll know how to find you._

He doesn’t like parties, fancy dress, or the eighties. He needs support and advice. 

 _I need support and advice,_ he messages Sue.

 _You know who’s good at that,_ she replies, and he sighs. He’s been dreading this, but it’s been a long time coming. He drafts and redrafts the next text several times before he’s happy with it.

_Do you still have that Morrissey costume you used to wear to fancy dress parties?_

_Yes,_ Peter replies, almost immediately, and doesn’t ask anything else, which is Peter’s way of being helpful. 

_Does it still fit?_

_Hm._ Oh, this shit again. _Probably._

Ok. Gordon inhales, exhales, and types the next message.

_Want to go to a party?_

 

* * *

 

Philip lets him in when he arrives to pick Peter up; Peter is still styling his quiff. The clothes still fit - Peter’s always been thin - and both of them poke fun at Gordon’s insistence on wearing a tshirt and jeans.

“I don’t know why you’re even going, Gordon,” Philip tells him in amused exasperation, eating popcorn cross-legged on the couch. “I’m going to watch _Seventh Seal_ , you’re welcome to ditch your party and stay here.”

Peter ruffles his hair and Philip grumbles.

“You have _hair gel_ on your hands,” he reminds him.

Gordon shakes his head, embarrassed to say no. He’s not sure he can tell Philip he’s thinking of leaving the shop. Philip, like Peter, seems to have loved the shop practically from birth. It’s not that Gordon doesn’t understand. It’s just -

“I have to,” he says, without explanation. 

“It’s a work thing,” Peter says, and they exchange a look. Gordon wonders whether Philip already knows, whether Tony has asked them to change his mind, whether Peter has already told Tony about this party - except of course he’s told Tony. Peter tells Tony everything. Philip only shrugs, though, and hands Peter his bunch of daffodils as they leave; Peter kisses his forehead softly before getting into Gordon’s car.

They drive until they reach a neighbourhood full of huge, beautiful houses. They’ve found their place, Gordon thinks; he can hear the bass line of _Out of Touch_ from one of them, and the front garden is lit with bright neon lights. He parks badly - he may be a little nervous - and stares at the rear view mirror. He feels ridiculous and wrong, as though trapped in the wrong universe.  

“Do I look ok?” he asks, twitchy and uneasy and suddenly regretting his decision not to dress up. He’s going to look like a killjoy.

“Well,” Peter tells him, after an uncharacteristically long period of silence, “I’m no fortysomething French record producer, but yes. You look fine.” 

“Ok,” Gordon says. He fusses with his hair, then opens the car door. “Come on. I don’t want Michel to wait.”

“Who’s Camdessus-”

“Michel."

“Who’s _Michel_ going as, then? Robert Smith?” Peter asks, slightly mocking. 

“Er. Bruce Springsteen, I think,” he says, smoothing his hair.

“Oh,” Peter exclaims, laughing. “Gosh.”

“Shut up,” Gordon replies. Peter shrugs, but the smirk lingers.

They’re let in by a passable attempt at George Michael, and walk into the party, rooms crowded with people in the most ridiculous 80s costumes, laughing and drinking and dancing to something that should never been dragged out of the horrible trash corner. They escape the horrible noise and wander out into the equally busy garden, where they discover a swimming pool. An actual swimming pool, which honestly nobody living in England should have in their garden, in Gordon’s opinion, no matter how much money they have to waste. Gordon hates this place so much - he’s played at similar events before, and it was always awful. Still, he can’t help but want to fit in, seize the opportunity of being here, take the job he has always dreamed.  

“My God, this is a... scene,” Peter murmurs. “They’re actually playing _Sweet Dreams_. It’s like being a minor character in a plotline about somebody else’s corruption.” 

“There’s no corruption,” Gordon mutters back, as a girl dressed as Cindy Lauper brushes past them, laughing too loudly.

“That,” Peter says, smugly, “is exactly what an uncorrupted innocent would say before he ends the night doing cocaine from a stranger’s arse.” He grabs a glass of champagne from a passing tray, not looking terribly concerned. “I should have stayed at home and watched _Seventh Seal_ with Philip.”

“How are things with you and Philip?” Gordon asks, trying not to worry about cocaine or strangers’ backsides. Peter looks amused.

“Fine, Gordon,” he says, eyebrows raised. “As you’d know, if you’d ever thought to ask for any other reason than to avoid contemplating your bizarre love triangle with a record shop and a music label.” 

Gordon smooths his hair down and glances at Peter reproachfully.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Peter says, a little more kindly, sipping at the champagne. “You have a lot going on. I know.”

“How did you know-” Gordon starts, and then reflects on the wording. “How did you know that you weren’t just friends?”

“Philip?" Peter asks, only faintly surprised. "Long story. After I was fired the first - no, the second - wait-” he stares off into the distance, brow furrowed, trying to recall.

“After you were fired,” Gordon prompts.

“I got extravagantly drunk and miserable and he looked after me. I slipped away the next morning and spent the week avoiding him, and he wrote me some very touching letters - real letters, it sounds ridiculously old fashioned, but you know what Philip’s like - sweet and very honest, then we went for lunch at the Savoy.” He takes another long sip, and smiles at the memory. “I told you all of this at the time, Gordon.”

“We-” 

He hesitates; this subject is one of the hardest to talk about. He never knows how. Luckily, Peter knows him very well indeed.

“Ah, that was different, wasn’t it?” he says, softly. “No letters. You couldn’t look at me in the eye afterwards.”

“You didn’t know until the letters?” 

Peter looks thoughtful, then shakes his head. 

“After John fired me-”

“He didn’t _fire_ you-”

“Gordon, I know you loved him, but he was a pig to us and made it perfectly clear we had to leave Red’s. So we were angry.” He sighs. 

“And drunk.”

“And drunk. And this might surprise to you, but I am not always quite this elegant and eloquent when drinking.”

They both laugh at that, gently.

“Philip took care of me,” Peter says, a strange type of joy in his eyes. “I was quite a mess for a while, you know. It was unpleasant. But he stayed with me. He never wavered or ran away or flinched, and I didn’t know why, but I knew then that there was nothing I could do that would change his mind.” He looks at Gordon, smiling. “Apparently he decided, when I came back from Hartlepool, that he wasn’t letting me get away again.” He looks thoughtful. “He’s very tenacious, that one.”

“You fell in love whilst drunk out of your skull?” Gordon asks, frowning. 

“Oh, _that’s_ what you’re taking away from my extremely romantic story? Fuck off, Gordon.” 

Gordon grins and falls quiet for a moment, scanning the room, frustrated at his poor eyesight. He can’t see Michel. Maybe he isn’t coming. Maybe it was a joke. Maybe -

“Peter,” Gordon asks, more seriously. “Are you happy?”

Peter stares back at him in blank astonishment.

“I’m happy if you’re happy,” he says, finally. “Are you happy?”

Gordon thinks of Sue, asking him the same question. He’s not sure he’s any closer to an answer than he was then, though. 

Next to him, Peter suddenly looks distracted, his posture and line of sight shifting slightly; he blinks several times, as though he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing, and then finally thumps Gordon’s arm gently.

“Is that _Harriet_?” he asks in hushed disbelief.

“Where?” Gordon can’t see anything under this light. 

Peter points, sacrificing politeness to Gordon’s vision, an old habit resurfacing. After a moment, he picks her out through the dancing people and smoke machines, talking with her hands; Harriet, a glass of champagne in her hand, dressed as a near-perfect Annie Lennox, right down to the hair dye. Someone spots Peter pointing and nudges her. She looks up, sees them, and waves.

“Gordon! Peter!” she shouts, smiling and pushing through the crowd towards them. Gordon wishes she wouldn't; now they’ll have to speak to her, maybe explain their presence here, and he’s not sure he can.

“Hey, guys!” she says, and laughs. “Peter, looking good. Gordon, you’re looking… characteristically boring.”

He scowls. 

“You’re here?” Gordon asks, not quite believing it. This is bad. They’ll run into Robin any moment now. “You’re _here_. Dressed as a Eurythmic.”

She shrugs. 

“It’s an 80s party,” she says, unconcerned, “and I had the clothes. Stop being so judgemental, Mr. Too Good For This Nonsense.”

“It’s a great costume,” Peter says, inspecting it. “You made this?”

“Why are you here?” Gordon demands, ignoring them. She grins and downs the rest of her champagne.

“I crashed it!” she tells him with evident glee, and pulls her best Rosie-the-Riveter pose. “It’s feminism. Let no obstacles stop you, and all that.” 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Gordon mutters. “It’ll look bad to Michel.”

“Who’s Michel?” 

“He’s nobody,” Gordon says, fast.

“He’s a label-owning musical producer intent on stealing Gordon from the shop and whisking him away to a life of decadence, cocaine and rent-boys in Washington D.C.,” Peter says slowly, drinking some more.

Harriet looks stunned.

“He’s joking about the rent-boys,” Gordon tells her.

“You’re thinking of leaving the shop?” she demands, appalled. “You can’t leave the _shop_! What the fuck? You _are_ the shop. Tony-”

“No- I’m not-”

They look at him with expressions of identical cynicism.

“You came to a _party_ for this,” Peter points out, feet tapping to _Blue Monday_. “You are, at the least, considering it.”

“Don’t leave the shop,” Harriet says, urgently. “It’ll upset the balance.” She notices their confused looks, and explains. “As we are, Tony does stupid things, and then Gordon gets mad at Tony, and Tony spends all day trying to get Gordon to forgive him and make out in the office. So Margaret gets to take care of the shop, and Robin and I get to do our own thing.”

“Sounds good,” Peter admits.

“No, it’s not, and neither you nor Robin have permission to fucking _do your own thing_ , which knowing Robin is something stupid.” Gordon says. 

She shrugs, unbothered. Then Peter nods at someone over Gordon’s shoulder, and Gordon knows, from the look on his eye, who it is.

“Gordon,” Michel calls, approaching and slapping him on the back in greeting. “Glad you could make it.”

“Michel,” Gordon says, trying to keep the awkwardness from his smile. “This is Peter Mandelson, and, uh, my friend Harriet.”

“I,” Peter says, shaking hands with Michel, “am also a friend of Gordon’s.” Michel’s smile is tolerant.

“I love your costume,” he tells Harriet.

“Thanks!”

“And you’re having fun, I hope?” he asks, charming and effortless.

“Oh, loads,” Harriet answers for them. Peter nods. 

Michel smiles.

“Good. If you want anything, tell someone you’re with me,” he tells them with a wink. His tone becomes a little conspiratory. “I'm producing the hostess’ new single.”

Gordon tenses, half-expecting them to turn up their noses at the crassness of it, but they look gleeful, with only a touch of irony in their thank-yous.

“Gordon, may I have a word?” Michel asks, a hand on his elbow. He nods back towards the house. “Alone?” 

Gordon nods. Harriet mouths don’t leave at him, expression fierce; Peter’s smile is wry. He ignores them both and follows Michel into the living room and upstairs.

“That’s better,” Michel says, as distance muffles the music. “I like to hear people. Even if the songs are good.”

Gordon brushes the hair from his face nervously and resists the urge to bite his nails.

“You’ve been considering my offer?” 

“Yes,”  Gordon confesses. Michel smiles sympathetically.

“And?” 

“I-” He sighs. “I’m not sure I can leave Red’s,” he admits.

“You are very attached to the store.”

“Yes,” he says, quietly. “When I first came to London… well. I’ve been there for years. It kept me going through uni. And then I finished and found I couldn’t leave.” He smiles. “It’s a difficult place to leave.”

“Can I ask you something?” Michel asks, with a searching look. Gordon nods.

“Did you come to London to work in music, or to work at Red’s?”

He doesn’t quite know how to reply that, and Michel doesn’t insist; instead they start talking about their musical influences, recent albums, trends in musical consumption. Downstairs, people come and go, dancing, kissing, jumping into the pool; Gordon isn’t really paying attention. He finds it good to be able to talk to someone about something he knows; he always has. 

It’s not until Michel looks at his watch that they notice they’ve talked for hours. Michel shrugs. “I’m staying at a friend’s,” he offers.“He has instruments, my laptop. You could-”

Gordon hesitates, as usual; he wants to agree to this, absolutely wants to, because it’s all he ever wanted being delivered on silver plate, but affection tugs at his heart and he fears it, the absence of Red’s, a life without it. 

“I am not sure if I should,” Gordon admits, then shakes his head at how much like a cliché housewife in an affair he sounds. Michel must have caught it, because he laughs.

“I haven’t had this conversation in ten years,” he says, good-humouredly. “And they were girls!” 

He blushes slightly, and Michel grins.  

“It’s ok,” he assures him. “I just want to make sure you give the offer full consideration.” He pauses. “I really should go, though. I can take you home?” He gestures at Gordon’s t-shirt and jeans. “You don’t seem entirely comfortable here, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

He nods slowly, unable to look directly at Michel. “I’ll just go tell my friends.”

Michel smiles pleasantly.

“Meet you by the car.”

They go down the stairs together, and then Michel goes to say his goodbyes to the hostess; it takes Gordon a minute to spot Harriet and Peter, dancing enthusiastically. They’ve both somehow got covered in body glitter since he left them. He rolls his eyes and elbows his way through the dancers towards them, the loud music hurting his ears.

“I need to talk to you,” he tells Peter.

“What?” Peter asks, much too loudly. He’s drunk. 

Of course.

“I need to talk to you!” Gordon says, trying to make himself heard over the music.

“What?” Harriet screams. 

“I need to talk about the fucking job offer from Michel!” he yells back. 

“ _What_?” they ask, simultaneously. 

“I need you both with me right now!” he shouts, just as the music quietens a little. The dancers next to them giggle and make suggestive noises.

“Alright, dear,” Peter says loudly, grinning, “I know how you get when you’re needy...”

Gordon hates him so much.

He tries and fails not to blush as he grabs Peter by the arm, pulling him from the crowd. Harriet follows.

“Can you stop dancing to _Tainted Love_ for one goddamn minute and pay attention to me?” Gordon demands. 

“Do I have to stop dancing too?” Harriet asks, sipping her vodka orange.

“What’s your issue with _Tainted Love_?” Peter asks, a little indignant.

“Synth pop,” Gordon says, dismissively. 

“You can’t talk shit about _Tainted Love_ ,” Peter protests. “You’re bisexual!”

“You don’t need to scream it,” Gordon snaps, looking around in alarm. 

“I didn’t scream,” Peter replies, rolling his eyes, “I’m not _you_. And, darling, Michel works in the music business. I promise you, he already knows about the gays. ”

Gordon is about to retort, but he misses the moment, as the next song starts. It’s _I Ran_ , and Gordon can’t conceal his dismay. 

“Don’t dance to this,” he orders. “It’s garbage.” 

Peter rolls his eyes.

“Well? What’s the matter?”

He looks at Harriet. She looks at Peter. Peter looks at her.

“I am _not_ leaving” she says, grimly. “It’s about the shop.”

Peter shrugs, and Gordon decides he doesn’t have the time to fight this. 

“Michel’s taking me home. I’m still considering the job offer.”

“You’re going home with a strange man?” Peter asks, eyebrow raised. 

“Don’t make it sound like that.”

Peter shrugs and takes Gordon’s car keys when he offers them.

“You’re going to need to sober up before you two go home,” he warns them, and Peter sighs theatrically. 

“Yeah.” He touches Gordon’s shoulder suddenly. “Gordon. Don’t accept the offer tonight.” His expression is strange. Probably just the alcohol. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Not as much as you,” he snaps, defensively. Peter frowns.

“Gordon. I’m serious. Not tonight.”

Gordon folds his arms over his chest, uncomfortable at the commanding note in Peter’s voice.

“It’s not y-”

“Fine!” Peter cuts him off, voice suddenly shrill. “Fine. It doesn’t matter. Go home with him, then. Say yes. You’ll spend weeks agonising about Tony, and Tony will spend weeks agonising about how-” his voice suddenly changes - “ _I just want to take care of him_ , Peter.” He throws his hands up in despair. “And then you’ll fight again, and we’ll just have to let you and deal with the fallout ourselves.”

“That,” Harriet says, “is actually a very good description of what they’re like.”

It is, and Gordon is painfully aware that it is, but they’re insufferable and he’s stubborn.

“Why don’t both of you just fuck off?” he snaps. “You don’t have a coherent thought between the two of you.”

Peter sighs and presses his fingers to his temple. _I’ve got headaches named after you_ , Gordon remembers him saying once. Then he looks at Gordon again, a gentle smile on his face. 

“Sure. Let’s go, Harriet,” he says, tucking Gordon’s keys into his pocket and grabbing her hand. “Say goodbye to the hater.”

“Bye, hater,” she says, waving.  

Fucking typical. Gordon tries to calm himself down, then spots Michel waving at him from the corner of the room. Peter is wrong, he thinks. He won’t agonise at all. This is what he wants.

 

* * *

 

It’s a long drive from the affluent neighbourhood of their hostess back to his shabby little flat, but Michel puts his music on, and his taste is exceptional. It’s almost morning by the time they arrive; the sky is beginning to lighten just a little at the edges. Gordon feels tired. He feels confused. He feels that leaving might be a terrible mistake. He wonders whether staying might be, too.

“What’s Washington like?” he asks, suddenly. Michel smiles.

“Big. American.”

Gordon laughs. He thinks of his tiny flat, the tiny store. Life in London is cramped, he thinks. It would be nice to have some space.

Michel looks at him, thoughtfully.

“You are still not sure?”

Gordon is quiet for a moment. Michel parks the car in front of the block of flats, turns to look at him.

“I can give you another night,” he tells him. “Don’t tell me now. Tell me tomorrow.” He smiles, tiredly. “You will get it right, Gordon. I think you usually do.”

Gordon nods.

“Thanks for the lift.”

“Good-night, Gordon.”

He gets out of the car, skin prickling into goosebumps in the cold air, and makes his way up to his flat.

His head is still spinning as he gets in and flicks on the light, and realises he can hear music. His music. He stands in the hallway for a moment, listening to his own voice, before exhaustion overcomes cowardice and he moves into the living room.

Tony is curled up in a ball on his couch, listening to his record. He’s still, and for a moment Gordon thinks he must have fallen asleep, but he moves when he approaches.

“Gordon,” Tony says softly, eyes a little swollen and nose slightly red. He attempts a smile, but doesn’t quite manage it. “I was worried."


	5. Chapter 5

 

\- Before -

 

“It’s one of those days,” Peter warns him at the door, and Gordon braces himself for trouble. 

John is here, at the shop, for the first time since he bought it from Neil, and things have been... odd, between the two of them. Gordon loves John, is grateful to John, wants John’s approval and to prove to him that he’s worthy to take care of Red’s, but lately nothing seems enough, and John watches him with something like suspicion. He’s never been suspicious of Gordon before. Owning the shop has changed something. Maybe even changed John himself. Gordon doesn’t mind discipline- he’s more than used to discipline- but the coldness, the sense of rejection creeping up between them, is harder to deal with. 

“What’s going on?” he asks Peter, who is busy pretending to clean a counter. 

“He’s doing a check of the store,” Peter mutters, expression sour. “Which means he’s looking for trouble.” By his side, Philip shifts nervously from foot to foot.

“He won’t find it,” Gordon says, a weak attempt to reassure himself. Peter looks sceptical.

Gordon glances around the store. He knows things are in order - untidy, but in order - in the office. He knows he’s doing things right. John will understand. Gordon is the only person who knows how to run Red’s.

“Gordon!” John calls, coming out into the shop. “You’re looking well. How’s your leg?”

Gordon smiles. John looks cheerful. It’s fine. It will all be fine. 

“Still scarred,” he says, studying John’s face for any sign of fatigue. He goes into hospital worryingly often-  heart problems- and Gordon gets anxious every time. 

John chuckles.

“This one put an _ice-pick_ through his own thigh last time he was up in Scotland,” he tells Philip, shaking his head. “Only you, Gordon…”

Gordon smiles, embarrassed. 

“How’s everybody up there?”

John shrugs.

“I’ve been busy with the studio, mostly. We have to go back properly some time,” he says, and Gordon raises an eyebrow, interested in the studio as ever. It’s small, but it’s John’s, and he quite likes it. “You know who was just there, though? Robin!”

“Oh.” Gordon tries not to grimace. _God,_ he thinks, _I hope Robin isn’t trying to worm his way back into Red’s_. “How is he?”

“Pretty downbeat,” John says. “He released an album, but it didn’t sell.” Gordon tries not to betray too much satisfaction; Peter notices, though, and hides a smile.

“Anyway, Gordon,” John adds, “the pipe in the toilet leaks.” Peter’s expression is pure _told you so_. Philip winces. 

“I didn’t know,” Gordon admits, almost apologetically. John shrugs. 

“It leaks water onto the floor. It needs fixing,” he says, rather bluntly. _It’s your fault._ He peers thoughtfully at Gordon from behind his fashionably oversized spectacles. “This place needs better management.”

“I can- ” he starts to protest, but he’s interrupted.

Tony walks in, drenched from the rain, smiling like sunshine itself.

“John!” he exclaims, as though delighted. It can only be an act; he never stops complaining to Gordon about John’s handling of the shop. It’s a superb act, though. John smiles.

“Tony!” John slaps Tony on the back. “You owe me a drink, kid.” Gordon sighs in defeat and tries not to feel usurped. Everyone treats Tony like a beloved child. Tony is simply more charming, even to John. That’s all.

Rather than stay and watch them pretend to adore each other, he goes to the toilet. He might as well work out what’s wrong with the pipes. He turns the tap on and checks the floor. At first there’s at first there’s nothing, then a few drops of water. Nothing serious, then. A bit of duct tape might even keep it going long enough for him to order new piping, rather than have to call someone in. He kneels down on the floor. It looks fine. Trying not to speculate that John’s sudden pickiness is more about his sudden mistrust of Gordon than the problem itself, he touches the pipe, trying to find the leak, trying not to think about the falseness in John’s smile or the thoughtful look with which he’d suggested new management-

The plastic piping makes a loud noise in his hands, and then there’s water everywhere, and he springs back, yelling in alarm. It’s broken. He’s broken it, and he tries to stem the flow, but only manages to get the water everywhere, and on his shirt, and shouts in frustration.

“ _Fuck_!” he screams, painfully aware that the situation is getting worse by the second. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!”

There’s barely a heartbeat - it seems far too long - before Peter and Tony run in; Peter turns the tap off, and Tony disappears back through the doorway as the gushing water stops. Gordon scrambles clumsily to his feet, face burning with humiliation, clothes soaked.

“Are you ok?” Peter asks, cautiously. It takes him a few minutes to catch his breath enough to reply, jaw locked with fury. 

“John?” he manages to ask through gritted teeth.

“Left,” Tony says, reappearing with a dry shirt in his hands. It’s the spare one Gordon keeps in his satchel, and the sight of it suddenly infuriates him. He grabs it.

“Don’t go through my _fucking_ things, you arrogant wanker,” he snarls, and pushes past Peter out of the bathroom and into the office. 

His mind spins off a litany of poisonous little reminders: he could’ve just turned the tap off, but didn’t, like an idiot, and he’s ruined the floor, and the shop doesn’t have insurance, and he doesn’t have insurance, he can’t afford this, not with student loans and the car, and he can’t have the store because nobody would give the store to an idiot who can’t turn a tap off, and without the shop he’s got no future at all, because he’s not going to be a musician, and the weight of each successive failure makes his head pound and his eyes ache and his knuckles sting.

He doesn’t remember starting to punch the wall, barely even notices the pain in his fingers, and he doesn’t want to stop, though he can already see the blood. He punches again, and again, the pain clearing the insidious thoughts from his head as the flimsy wall of the office shakes from the abuse. 

“Gordon,” Tony says from the door of the office, voice strained with horror. “Gordon- _Christ_ \- Gordon, stop that.” 

He approaches Gordon and places a hand on his back. The pity in the touch is nauseating.

“Fuck off,” he snaps, shoving Tony away. He means to hit the wall again, but Tony stumbles back, falls over his own feet and crumples to the floor, head hitting the desk as he falls with a sickening hollow sound.

Gordon snaps out of it.  

Lying on the floor, Tony blinks in confusion, and Gordon kneels down next to him, horror-stricken, as his eyes widen. 

“Tony,” he says, hesitant to touch him, terrified that he might be hurt. The sound of Tony’s head hitting the wood is still ringing in his ears. How had he done that? He hadn’t meant to. He never would have. “I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, the words unfamiliar and uncomfortable in his mouth. “Tony, I’m sorry.”

Tony blinks again, looking confused, then touches his head gingerly, wincing at the pressure. Gordon is full of fear and regret now. 

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry- I’m sorry- I shouldn’t have,” he chokes. “Tony- Tony- I’m a fucking moron, I’m sorry, I-”

He stops, because Tony has pushed himself upright and is watching him with an odd expression.

He takes Gordon’s bleeding hand, very gently, in both of his, and suddenly Gordon realises that his entire life hangs in the balance in this moment. On whether Tony can forgive him. If he doesn’t- if Tony can’t forgive him, then he’s just a loser, achieving nothing, tied to a failing shop and his own blinding, biting brain.

“It’s ok,” Tony promises softly. He smiles, but it seems to hurt him to do so, and Gordon feels a stabbing guilt. “You didn’t mean it.”

And there’s absolution. Gordon breathes again. Tony’s hands are still around his.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asks, thumb running over Gordon’s knuckles. Gordon holds his breath at the touch.

“No,” he lies, staring down at his bleeding hand. Tony smiles, a little dazed.

“Ok.” Gordon worries he might have hit his head too hard. “We’re alright.”

Gordon extricates his hand.

“You’re sure?” he asks. Tony smiles and nods, scrambling to his feet.

“Just lost my footing when you pushed me.” 

“Tony, I’m-“

“No. No, it was an accident.”

Gordon gets up as well.

“I get like this sometimes.”

“We all do.” 

“Well-”

“It’s ok.”

He had expected Tony to look scared, or angry, or hurt; instead, he looks reverent. 

“It’s ok,” he says again, touching Gordon’s hair. Normally, he’d flinch. Today he doesn’t dare. Tony grins, blinding and wide, then ruffles his hair in a friendly gesture. Just like he might with anyone.

He can’t have Tony- who, most likely, doesn’t want him- but Tony has always known him, and now he knows this side of him, the one he would rather hide. He’s seen Gordon in his entirety, now, and he’s still there, still close, still smiling. 

He wonders if perhaps things are starting to get better.

 

 

 - After -

 

Tony insists on sleeping on the sofa, but Gordon doesn’t really want to sleep at all, so he spends the rest of the night half asleep next to Tony on the couch, thinking of Washington and the store and Peter _fucking_ Mandelson.

He wakes up with Tony’s head on his lap. His hand has migrated to Tony’s hip, his thumb tracing little circles over the skin beneath his shirt. He pulls it away, and Tony wakes, grumbling wordlessly at the loss.

“Hey,” he mumbles, still drowsy, face soft and hair mussed with sleep.

“Hey.” Gordon clears his throat. “You slept ok?”

Tony gets up from the couch and shrugs. 

“Alright,” he says. It’s strange, the way he hasn’t kissed Gordon yet. They could be nothing but roommates. “Let me brush my teeth.”

He pads off towards the bathroom, and Gordon checks and re-checks his phone. No new messages. Last night already feels strangely unreal. Tony returns, smelling of toothpaste, and settles next to him, eyes a little red.

“So,” he says, too brightly. “You’re thinking of leaving.”

“Tony -”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” Gordon admits, then wonders if it’s true. “No.” He sighs, hiding his face in his hands. “I need to give an answer today.” 

Tony nods, thoughtfully.

“Talk,” he says, and Gordon wants to say _no_. Talking is Tony's playing field.

“Tony.”

“We can try.”

“We can’t-“

“I’ll tell you anything,” Tony promises. “We can trade.”

The temptation, as Tony knows, is far too great. Gordon can never resist knowledge, because he can never resist power. Gordon nods.

“I’ll get us something to drink first,” Tony says, disappearing into the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Stronger.”

“Whisky?”

“Weaker.”

“Coffee it is.”

Gordon stares at his shoes; at the small hole in his jeans; at the floorboards. He wants to give up now, walk out at once, join the IMF and take the first flight to D.C. He wants to find the right words for Tony, be with him, have him, have Red’s. His feelings for Tony tangle with his feelings for the shop, the music, the life he’s made here. The problem- the greatest problem, anyway- is that he’s not always sure it’s true, and Tony, the great teller of untruths, will know at once if he’s lying.

“There you go,” Tony chirps, setting the mugs on the coffee table. “Ok. Let’s do this.”

They watch each other for a while. Conversation with Tony, in Gordon’s experience, is a lot like chess. You mostly spend it trying to guess twenty moves ahead.

And it’s no fun when you’re losing.

“Ok,” Tony says again. “My turn first.” He grins, nervously. “I kissed Peter once.” 

It’s a sort of dull shock, rather than a stab of surprise, but he opens his mouth to demand _when_. Gordon’s recurrent nightmare is Tony's infidelity; Tony’s constant complaint is that Gordon doesn’t trust him enough. If he-

“Not recently, of course,” Tony clarifies. “The day the video went viral. And Dad found out. And you defended Charlie-” Gordon flinches- “and I got upset.”

“So you kissed _Peter_?”

“Yeah,” Tony explains, sagely, “because I felt terrible. And Peter is nice.” His eyes widen a little, pleadingly. “You can’t hate me for that. We weren’t even-” 

“I don’t,” Gordon interrupts, truthfully. Tony doesn’t seem terribly attached to the memory, and has fired Peter at least twice since the day in question. And Gordon has done far more than just kiss Peter himself. "The scar on my leg," he says, and Tony's eyes widen in interest. "We were walking, years ago, and I managed to stab my thigh with an ice pick. John took the others on, and Charlie and I went back."

"What was _Charlie_ doing with you in Scotland?"

"Not him. Charlie Kennedy. You know. Fat and ginger. Drunk a lot."

"Why are all Charlies like that?" Gordon laughs reluctantly as Tony frowns in recollection. "Yeah, I remember. He hated my band."

" _War Crimes_ is a terrible name for a band, in fairness."

Tony smiles. 

"Wasn't my idea," he shrugs. "But I hate that Ch- I hate that your friends keep trying to... I don't know. Break us up, or whatever."

"They _aren't_."

"If you say so," Tony says, smiling a little sadly. “Your turn.”

Gordon frowns, sifting through the piles of potential confessions. Very slowly, he settles on something.

“I don’t like sleeping next to you,” he says. It sounds both stupid and cruel. “Sometimes.”

Tony frowns and worries at his lip.

“Really?” 

He sounds insulted.

“You grab me whilst I’m trying to sleep!” Gordon protests. “It makes me feel like a child.”

“It’s called spooning!”

“I know what it’s called,” Gordon snaps, feeling guilty already, “because you do it constantly.”

“It’s _affectionate_ , Gordon.”

“It’s like fucking a bloody octopus.” Then he catches the look in Tony’s face, and tries again, softer. “Look, I- I just don’t like being woken up, ok?”

“Ok,” Tony concedes.  Gordon can tell he’s trying not to look hurt. “Yeah, I can do that less.” Gordon nods, and Tony considers his next words.

“It upsets me,” he says, quietly, “that you don’t trust me.”

Gordon isn’t quite sure how to reply, and Tony shrugs. 

“I know why you don’t. But it still upsets me.” 

“I can’t do anything about that,” Gordon mutters, almost to himself.

“You could believe me,” Tony says. His face is stony, but his voice is gentle. “John didn’t like me, really. I didn’t think he’d want me near the shop in a million years. I thought it would be you, I always wanted it to be you, and I don’t know why-” he stops mid-sentence at the look on Gordon’s face. His chest aches, and he knows his expression betrays it. “Oh God. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not going to cry.”

“You look like you always do when you’re about to cry.”

“I don’t cry.” 

Tony almost smiles at that. 

They stare at each other again, and Gordon tries not to cry, tells himself that he _can’t_ , not now, in front of Tony. He hasn’t cried about it since the evening they found out. Not counting the day he’d kicked the desk so hard the leg broke. 

“Sorry.” 

“This was a bad idea,” Gordon mutters, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“Yes. Listen-” Tony is about to say something else, but Gordon chokes on a sob, and Tony pulls him close.

“I miss John,” he mumbles into Tony’s shoulder in confession.

“I know,” Tony murmurs, voice full of pity, stroking Gordon’s hair.

“I think I failed him.” 

“You didn’t.”

“He gave _you_ the shop.” 

It hurts to say it out loud, but the words in his head seem somehow diminished for being spoken. He wonders if this is how it will work admitting his feelings for Tony, too.

“I know, but -” 

“That’s enough, I think,” he says, wiping the tears away furiously. “We should stop now.”

Tony doesn’t insist, allowing Gordon to pull away before sipping gingerly at the hot coffee. Gordon checks the time on his phone; a few hours before he needs to go and make his decision, and he’s not closer to knowing whether he loves Tony, whether he wants to leave, whether John had made the right choice.

“I did stand-up comedy once,” Tony says absently, cradling his coffee cup.

“Oh?” Gordon looks at him, with some curiosity.

“It was fucking awful.”

Gordon grins.

“I had a Star Trek routine, with this one character I called-” suddenly he blushes. Gordon feels impossibly fond. “No, it really was fucking awful, forget it.”

“No, no,” Gordon demurs. “Let’s hear this. I’m interested.”

“I- well, he was called Captain Kink.”

Gordon almost chokes on his coffee, and Tony laughs, delighted.

“Please tell me you’ve destroyed the recordings.”

“No recording, thank fuck,” Tony replies, still grinning. “I took Cherie. She claims it was hilarious, but I’m not quite sure she means it as a compliment.”

Gordon shakes his head. He can’t quite imagine Tony, his Tony, charming and effortlessly convincing, the consummate actor, blundering around nervously and ineptly on an actual stage.

“Why did you do it?” 

“I don’t know. Why do I do anything? To be liked, I guess.”

“Everyone likes you.” Gordon says, dismissively.

“Nah.” 

“Fuck off, Tony, they do.” 

“Well, you know,” he smiles, looking suddenly tired and somehow a lot older. He won’t age well, Gordon notes. It’s a good job he loves him. “There’s always someone out there who just sees you as a weird upstart try-hard little fraud.”

“I didn’t realise we were still talking about Charlie,” Gordon deadpans, and Tony beams.

“There you go, Mr. Brown, I knew you had a sense of humour somewhere,” he jokes, and they both laugh, They’re very good at making each other laugh. 

Tony’s expression sobers a little.

“It’s not just him. I think the shop, everyone at the shop, everyone who knows it, even people who only know _of_ it, they- well, they look at me sometimes. Like I don’t look like the kind of person who should own Red’s. They think I’m just an alien.”

“Drama queen.”

“That’s me,” Tony grins, downing the last of his coffee. “It’s not like I’m losing sleep over it. Well, not a lot of sleep.” His tone is playful, but the tired look lingers around his eyes, where the crows’ feet will be one day. Then he smirks. “But it’s your turn, and that was a big secret, so you’d better give me a good one.”

He breathes in. He doesn’t even have to think, but the words are difficult to spit out. He has never wanted to ask this.

“Are you afraid of me?” 

“That’s not a secret,” Tony points out, softly.

“Are you?” he demands, ignoring him. “When I’m angry?”

Tony shrugs.

“Not really.”

“So you are?” Gordon presses. 

“Yeah. Just that you might hurt yourself,” Tony says, and he remembers the way Tony had held his bleeding hand. 

“I don’t mean to hurt people when I’m angry.”

“I know.”

“I regret it. Afterwards.”

“I know.”

He takes Gordon’s hand, thumb tracing circles over the knuckles, where the countless self-inflicted bruises have faded back into the skin.

“I want you to stay here and tell me that you love me.”

Gordon stares at him. He does love him. He has known he loves Tony for almost two minutes now, and it hasn’t helped him decide anything at all. This is probably, if he is honest with himself, because he has loved Tony as long as he can remember knowing Tony. It’s been priced in, and it doesn’t really resolve any of the million conflicts and complications he has to resolve before he decides, one way or another.

“I don't know,” he says, taking Tony’s hand, suddenly half-afraid of losing him, “if I can.”

Tony inhales. His eyes are damp, but he’s smiling. That fucking smile.

“Ok,” he shrugs. He blinks, and his eyes are dry again, his smile full of mischief. “Can I try again? I’ve just thought of a much better secret.”

Gordon nods, and Tony leans in.

“I like it when you hurt me,” he says, kissing Gordon’s fingers. “Under the right circumstances.”

“That,” Gordon says slowly, watching him, “has not been a secret for a very long time.” Tony’s grin broadens.

“No, but there are still some you don’t know about, I think.” 

Tony pulls him from the couch and through into the bedroom, and Gordon wonders, pulse jumping, what exactly he’s missed.

“Just don’t ask me to call you _Captain Kink_ ,” he mutters, as Tony pushes him down onto the bed. Tony snorts, straddling his hips and dipping his head to kiss him, and Gordon lets Tony have his way, there being no other assurance he can offer. Tony fumbles at the buttons of his shirt, mouthing at the skin, teasing and rocking up against him until Gordon wonders if Tony will finish before he has a chance to do anything, but then Tony stops, panting hard, lips swollen and expression reverent.

“You can hurt me,” he says, a slight pleading note to his voice, “if you like. Something to remember you by,” he adds, softly, like it’s a joke. 

Gordon breathes in the smell of the room, of Tony’s skin, and then pulls him down onto the mattress, bracing himself over Tony.

“Where would you like to start?”

Tony’s eyes shine.

 

* * *

 

They shower together afterwards, though more from necessity than desire,and as soon as he feels clean, Gordon leaves Tony to fret over his hair and goes to find his clothes. He looks at his shirts- from Sue, from Peter, from Tony- and tries to distinguish any meaningful difference between them, but only concludes that he’d made a mess trying to iron the white one. Though he can’t actually remember ever trying to use an iron in his life. Perhaps it was Tony. He considers taking pictures and consulting Peter, but Tony leaves the shower as he’s deliberating and wanders over, warm and smelling of soap, and red and bruised in places Gordon had never even considered before, to scrutinise the wardrobe next to him.

“The pastel blue,” he says, decisively.

“I don’t like blue,” Gordon protests.

“I do. And it complements your skin tone,” Tony adds, already helping him into it. “Makes you look less like an undertaker.”

“I don’t look like an undertaker,” he protests, weakly.

“Yes, you do.” Tony assures him cheerfully, buttoning the shirt before stepping back to admire his work. “Like a sexy, brooding undertaker.”

Gordon raises an eyebrow.

“You,” he says, “are a great deal stranger than people think.” He tries to sound disapproving. Instead, he just sounds impressed. 

“And you’re a lot less strange than they think,” Tony tells him, steering him towards the door. “Hey. Good luck.”

He doesn’t sound sad. He might have been wishing him good luck in any benign endeavour. It’s only when he leans in and kisses him that Gordon can tell there is something else behind it. _Please pick me._ Tony says, wordlessly. _Please stay here with me._

“We’ll have dinner together,” Gordon promises, and leaves.

 

* * * 

 

The apartment is smaller than he’d expected, but more lavish, and Gordon settles on a chair as Michel pours them both wine.

“How are you, Gordon?” Michel asks, pleasantly.

“Alright,” he says, smoothing his hair nervously, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands.

“I am glad.” Michel hands him a glass of wine and perches on the edge of the sofa. “Have you made a decision yet?”

Gordon thinks of a boy with very big blue eyes, refusing to take no for an answer. 

He thinks about kissing the person he hates most in the world in a shop full of old ladies.

He thinks about the tiredness in Tony’s eyes, how Tony will look when they’re both old and grey, less stupid, perhaps stupendously confident of their own brilliance.

“No.”

Michel smiles.

 

* * *

 

He leaves a little later than he’d planned, there’s still time to get food, as he’d promised. 

He calls Tony.

“Hey,” says Tony, cheerily. Gordon can tell he’s faking it. “Sup!” Gordon smiles despite himself.

“Since when do you say sup, Tony?”

“Oh, since always. The correct reply, by the way, is ‘ _yo, Blair_ ’. But you’ve missed your opportunity now.”

“Try-hard.” Gordon accuses, grinning at his phone, and Tony laughs. “Is dinner still on?”

“‘Course,” Tony says, too quickly. “I’m at Alastair’s, so I can be with you in about five minutes, plus however long it takes us to finish this FIFA game. We can go out somewhere. Wherever you like.”

“Why are you playing FIFA?” he asks, faintly stunned. “You don’t know how to play FIFA. You don’t know what FIFA is.”

“Wrong! I know plenty about the eff eye eff ay, actually, and footballs, and-” he pauses to let Gordon recover from laughing, and Gordon can hear his smug smile over the phone.

“Who’re are you playing as?” 

“Real Madrid.” Gordon makes a noise of derision.

“Tony, at least choose one of the English ones.”

“What, so you can mock me for not being Scottish?” Tony asks, laughing. “Can we go to that new vegan place?”

“You and your rabbit food. Is this Carole again?”

“No! I haven’t seen her since- well, you know- but it looks brilliant. You can always get a kebab on the way home, you horrible carnivore.”

“Fine,” Gordon sighs. “I got plied with wine and cheese at the meeting. I’ll survive” 

“Oh?” Tony asks, “how was it?” The tone is almost perfectly casual, but Gordon hears the slight faltering in his voice.

“Good,” Gordon says. He can’t quite help but make Tony wait for it. “He was very interesting. Very helpful.” Tony is almost audibly holding his breath on the other end. “But it’s not the job for me.”

Tony utters a small noise of relief, too loud and sudden to smother. Gordon blushes at how much he likes it.

“You’re staying?”

“Yeah,” Gordon says, softly. “Probably an imprudent decision, financially, but you did turn down five million for the shop, so I thought it might be my turn. Besides, you’d be terrible at running it without me. And,” he adds, ruminatively, “staying at Red’s after all of this is going to _really_ annoy Robin.”

“I love you,” Tony laughs, gasping for breath, “God, I love you so much.” 

Gordon grins.

“I love you too.”

On the other end of the line, he hears Tony gasp.

“You _bastard_ , I can’t believe you- oh my _God_ \- of course you’d say it _over the phone_ -”  his voice becomes more distant, slightly crackly. “Ali,” Tony is yelling in the distance, “forget the FIFA, I’m going right now to _murder my stupid boyfriend_ , so-” his voice comes close to the phone again. “I’ll be with you in five minutes,” he promises, slightly out of breath. “Maybe four.”

“At least finish your FIFA game,” Gordon protests, indignant on Alastair’s behalf, but Tony has already hung up.

 

* * *

 

Sue has managed to cajole him into agreeing to an actual honest-to-god holiday, and subsequently dragged the pair of them, plus a ridiculous number of Red’s types, down to some posh place in the country named after a board game. Being shut up in a stuffy old house with Tony and Peter and people taking Tony and Peter’s side against him would normally be Gordon’s idea of a nightmare, but they’ve been here a week now and it’s been mostly fine. True, they’ve run out of clean crockery and resorted to drinking beer from coffee mugs, but there have only been two fights, two requests to _stop with the over-enthusiastic sex noises_ (Peter and Sue, respectively), and three to _fuck each other’s brains out a little more quietly, please_ (Alastair, Jonathan, and Mo). 

He realises he’s stopped reading to watch Tony and Peter filling their camera rolls with pouting selfies. Next to him, Philip is attempting to evade a bee circling his orange juice without harming it. It’s warmer than he really finds comfortable - he’ll probably be sunburnt tonight, and Tony will doubtless suggest at least five inappropriate uses for aftersun - but the breeze is pleasant, and the book is good, and all things considered, it’s not been a terrible day.

“Hey,” Sue calls, throwing him another Kit Kat and a fresh bottle of beer, swigging cheerfully from her own. “You’ve got a strange look on your face.”

Gordon busies himself pouring the beer into the I LOVE MY BOSS mug to hide his embarrassment, and she laughs. 

“Wasn’t trying to make you feel bad, Brownie, it was just a bit different from the normal undertaker look. Not used to seeing you smile.”

“I don’t look like a- I was just thinking about the stamp duty on a place like this,” Gordon lies, flushing. “And how much more it’d be under a genuinely progressive system of taxation.”

“Really,” she says, unconvinced, lighting her cigarette as they watch Peter shoo Philip’s bee away. “Has Tony started you on that new diet he was talking about yet?”

“No,” Gordon assures her through a mouth full of chocolate. “And if you remind him I will kill you, because he’ll actually do it and starve himself and become grumpy and we’ll lose half our sales.”

“And you’d have to give up the Kit Kats.”

“And beer.” 

She examines his face and laughs, suddenly.

“You know what, Gordon?” she asks. “I think you’re happy.” She takes a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. “You look happy.”

Gordon shrugs again.

“Doesn’t he look happy, Alastair?” she asks, punching Alastair’s arm. He doesn’t move from recumbent position in the deckchair, cigarette between his teeth, trying valiantly to read _Madame Bovary_ without removing his sunglasses.

“I don’t really care, Sue.”

She throws a patch of grass at him. He doesn’t bother to dodge it.

“Why did we invite you?” she asks him, stubbing out her cigarette and stealing his.

“‘cos Peter told you to.”

Gordon stops listening to them; instead he looks out across the lawn to where Tony seems to have challenged Peter to a running race. He has known he loves Tony for almost two months now, and it hasn’t really helped anything at all, except that saying _I love you_ in a fight shuts Tony up much quicker than _fuck off, Tony_ ever did. The relationship is still messy, half marriage, half maelstrom, but it is indubitably interesting. He thinks of the night of the party with Peter, feeling wrong, trapped somehow in the wrong life, the wrong universe. 

"Sue," he says, suddenly. She pauses her squabbling with Alastair to look over at him.

"Yeah?"

"Don't you think it's time Peter came back to the shop?" 

She stares at him, a dry smile spreading slowly over her face.

"Funnily enough, I do."  
  
Gordon nods, awkwardly. Red's is a strange little world, but it's the one Tony chose, the one he was born into. Another world, he thinks, or another time, and they'd probably never have made it this far. He's not sure what he'd be without Tony, but he knows that in this universe,  _with Tony_ is something he does, in fact, want to be.

 


End file.
